Y'S    AND    GIRL'S' 
LIB  MARY 

K  N  O  W-L  E  0  (.'  i 


if 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

SWCAIIOH 


PRESENTED  BY 

PROF.  CHARLES  A.  KOFOID  AND 
MRS.  PRUDENCE  W.  KOFOID 


. 


U1TCILE  IPJEI2IL3P 


'JT©    TI1CE 


with    Young"   Persons. 


YORK 

J.Jfe  JT.  MA  Ml0  IE  K      82    C  11,  JIFF     S  T '! 

!•  » 1. 


:? 


- 


NATURAL    HISTORY; 

OR, 

UNCLE    PHILIP'S 

CONVERSATIONS   WITH  THE   CHILDREN 

ABOUT 

TOOLS   AND   TRADES 

AMONG 

INFERIOR   ANIMALS. 


WITH    NUMEROUS    ENGRAVINGS. 


NEW-YORK: 

PUBLISHED  BY  HARPER  &  BROTHERS, 

NO.     83     CLIFF-STREET, 

AND   SOLD   BY    THE   PRINCIPAL   BOOKSELLERS  THROUGHOUT  THB 
UNITED   STATES 

1835. 


Entered,  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1835, 

By  HARPER  &  BROTHERS, 
In  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  Southern  District  of  New- York 


GIF1 


A/3? 


rar 


ru 


ADVERTISEMENT. 


WE  must  tell  our  little  readers  something  about 
this  number  of  their  Library.  It  was  sent  to  us  by 
a  very  kind  old  uncle  of  ours,  who,  when  we  were 
young,  was  so  much  from  home,  visiting  various 
places  in  the  world,  that  we  do  not  remember  seeing 
him  very  often  at  that  period.  At  last,  the  old  man, 
finding  that  he  could  not  bear  fatigue  as  he  had 
done  when  young,  determined  to  come  home ;  and 
we  had  heard  so  much  about  him  that  we  were  quite 
anxious  to  see  him.  He  came  to  our  house  one 
evening,  and  appeared  rather  odd  to  us ;  but  he  was 
so  good-natured,  and  told  us  so  many  curious  things, 
that  we  soon  forgot  his  odd  appearance. 

The  old  gentleman  brought  home  with  him  a  very 
large  number  of  books,  and  a  great  many  strange 
things  which  he  had  gathered  in  his  travels,  such  as 
stones,  and  dried  insects,  and  leaves,  and  flowers, 
and  stuffed  birds,  and  animals.  He  did  not  stay 
with  us  long,  but  went  to  the  village  where  he  was 

271 


4  ADVERTISEMENT. 

born,  and  built  a  small  house  to  which  he  carried  all 
his  books  and  curiosities,  and  said  that  he  should 
spend  the  rest  of  his  days  there. 

We  sometimes  pay  him  a  visit.  The  last  time 
we  were  there,  we  found  him  talking  to  several  chil- 
dren around  him.  In  the  beginning  of  the  book 
there  is  a  picture  of  the  old  gentleman.  After  you 
have  looked  at  it,  you  may  read  the  letter  which  he 
sent  us,  and  learn  how  he  came  to  write  this  book. 
Your  friends, 

THE  PUBLISHERS. 


UNCLE    PHILIP'S    LETTER. 


MY  DEAR  NEPHEWS, 

I  was  very  much  pleased  to  receive  the  numbers 
of  your  Library  for  Boys  and  Girls  which  you  sent 
to  me.  You  know  I  am  now  an  old  man,  and  have 
travelled  a  great  deal,  and  seen  a  great  many  strange 
things  in  the  course  of  my  life.  I  am  too  old  to  travel 
any  more,  and  so  I  am  quietly  living  in  the  cottage  I 
built  by  the  side  of  that  pleasant  and  shady  little 
stream  where  I  played  when  I  was  a  boy.  I  read 
my  books,  and  especially  that  best  of  all  of  them, 
my  Bible ;  and  so  am  patiently  waiting  till  my 
Heavenly  Father  shall  call  me  to  take  my  last  jour- 
ney; when  I  hope,  for  the  sake  of  the  blessed 
Saviour,  to  go  to  Him.  Sometimes  I  walk  out 
into  the  village,  and  meet  the  children  and  have  a 
long  talk  with  them.  They  all  know  me ;  and  very 
often,  some  of  them  will  come  to  my  house,  and 
ask  me  to  tell  them  about  things  which  I  have  seen 
in  my  travels  or  read  of  in  books  :  and  so  I  spend 
many  happy  hours  with  the  little  creatures ;  for  you 

A2 


6  UNCLE  PHILIP'S  LETTER. 

know  how  much  I  love  children.  When  I  had 
read  the  books  you  sent  to  me,  I  lent  them  to 
the  children,  who  were  delighted;  and  I  thought 
that  if  I  should  sometimes  write  down  what  we  here 
talked  about,  it  might  please  the  little  boys  and  girls 
for  whom  you  print  your  books,  and  perhaps  they 
might  learn  something  from  our  conversations  which 
would  be  useful :  and  so  I  determined  to  send  them 
to  you,  from  time  to  time,  to  print,  if  you  pleased. 

If  you  think  fit  to  print  what  I  send,  just  tell  your 
little  readers  who  I  am ;  an  aged  and  quiet  old  man, 
who  is  very  fond  of  little  boys  and  girls,  and  wishes 
them  to  be  wise  and  good  here,  and  happy  hereafter, 
and  that  I  am  your  UNCLE  PHILIP. 

Neiotown,  Feb.  1833. 

P.S.  If  you  print  what  I  send  now,  please  to  print 
the  Preface  to  Parents,  which  I  also  send ;  in  order 
that  they  may,  by  reading  it,  see  what  sort  of  a  book 
Uncle  Philip  has  been  making  for  their  dear  children, 
and  may  be  satisfied  that  it  will  not  harm  them  to 
read  it. 


PREFACE  TO  PARENTS. 


THE  author  of  the  following  book  avails  him- 
self of  the  opportunity  afforded  by  its  publication, 
to  address  a  word  to  those  who  sustain  the  delightful 
and  responsible  relation  of  parents. 

To  such  of  that  class  as  may  honour  by  a  perusal 
this  humble  attempt  to  interest  and  instruct  their 
offspring,  the  author  need  not  say  that  the  subject 
of  his  book  possesses  for  himself  peculiar  attrac- 
tions :  it  will  readily  be  perceived  that  he  has  found 
a  charm  in  the  pursuits  of  the  naturalist.  The 
votary  of  a  favourite  science  would  anticipate  too 
much,  should  he  expect  every  one  to  partake  of  the 
enthusiasm  which  is  apt  to  stimulate  him;  it  is 
wisely  and  kindly  ordered  that  we  shall  not  all  be 
enthusiasts  in  the  same  direction.  The  author,  how- 
ever, still  ventures  to  hope,  that  in  his  subject  there 
is  enough  to  attract,  though  it  may  fail  to  fascinate. 
He  hopes,  too,  that  it  will  be  found  not  attractive 
merely,  but  profitable  also  to  his  young  countrymen. 
There  are  many  reasons  on  which  to  found  such 


8  PREFACE    TO    PARENTS. 

a  hope.  If  to  entertain  reverence  for  our  Maker, 
to  admire  and  adore  his  wisdom  and  goodness  in 
the  illustrations  of  nature,  thankfully  to  acknow- 
ledge and  duly  to  improve  the  superiority  which 
mind  confers,  be  exercises  in  which  a  wise  parent 
would  desire  to  train  a  child, — the  study  of  natu- 
ral science  is  admirably  adapted  to  the  attainment 
of  these  objects.  Again,  if  it  be  desirable  to  en- 
courage habits  of  patient  observation,  accuracy  of 
investigation,  and  soundness  of  thought ;  let  the  vol- 
ume of  nature  be  opened  before  the  youthful  mind. 
If  to  learn  things  be  better  than  to  learn  words,  it 
is  important  to  place  things  before  the  growing 
intellects  of  the  young.  Let  it  not  be  supposed  that 
to  present  matters  of  science  intelligibly  to  the  minds 
of  children  is  a  hopeless  task.  It  requires  not 
learning  or  maturity  of  understanding  to  perceive 
a  fact ;  it  needs  only  the  ordinary  senses  which  God 
has  bestowed  alike  upon  children  and  their  parents. 
Natural  science  is  emphatically  the  science  of 
facts ;  built  upon  any  other  foundation  it  becomes 
conjecture  merely :  and  he  knows  but  little  of  the 
mind  of  a  child  who  is  not  aware  of  the  facility  with 
which  a  fact  is  impressed  upon  it.  The  secret  of 
instructing  the  young  will  be  found  to  consist  more 
in  the  mode  of  communication  than  in  the  nature 
of  the  subject. 


PREFACE    TO    PARENTS.  9 

As  to  the  style  of  this  work  a  word  may  be  said ; 
not,  of  course,  for  the  purpose  of  disarming  criticism 
(for  truly  the  writer  has  never  supposed  his  trifle  worth 
the  critic's  labour  or  notice),  but  simply  to  remark, 
that  the  object  has  been  to  write  for  the  minds  of  chil- 
dren ;  if  the  book  be  intelligible  to  them,  the  utmost 
ambition  of  Uncle  Philip  will  be  attained.  Truth 
and  plainness  were  all  he  sought.  The  first  he  be- 
lieves he  has  attained ;  and  to  determine  his  success 
in  attempting  the  last,  he  turns  from  the  parents,  and 
looks  for  the  decision  of  the  question  to  the  suf- 
frages of  the  children.  He  would  rather  hear  the  ex- 
pression of  satisfaction  from  the  lips  of  one  intelligent 
little  reader,  than  receive  the  words  of  approbation 
from  many  who  are  elders ;  the  first  is  testimony 
derived  from  experience,  the  last  is  but  opinion. 
Children  always  know  better  than  any  one  else  does 
what  books  they  understand. 

In  conclusion,  the  author  owes  it  to  himself  to 
say  to  the  parents  of  his  young  countrymen,  and  to 
the  patrons  of  the  "Boy's  and  GirPs  Library," 
that  what  he  has  written  will  be  found  on  the  side 
of  religion  and  morals.  So  far  as  these  important 
points  are  concerned,  the  writer  is  not  ashamed 
to  avow  himself  a  Christian ;  nor  yet  does  he  mean 
to  make  it  the  subject  of  boasting.  In  his  simple 
view,  Christianity  is  a  very  quiet  and  gentle  thing, 


10  PREFACE    TO    PARENTS. 

which  eschews  strife,  and  promotes  practical  good- 
ness ;  and  truly  can  he  say,  that  he  has  indulged 
in  some  of  his  happiest  and,  as  he  trusts,  his  ho- 
liest musings  when,  in  the  solitary  pursuit  of  his 
favourite  science, — to  use  the  language  of  good  old 
Izaak  Walton,  that  simple-hearted  lover  of  God,  and 
all  his  works, — "  he  has  looked  upon  the  wonders 
of  nature  with  admiration,  or  found  some  harmless 
insect  to  content  him,  and  pass  away  a  little  time, 
without  offence  to  God,  or  injury  to  man." 


CONTENTS. 


CONVERSATION  L 

ABOUT  a  Fly  that  can  work  with  a  Saw  and  a  Rasp,  like 
the  Carpenter  --- 13 

CONVERSATION  II. 
About  Grasshoppers  and  Bees  that  bore  Holes  with  a  Gimlet    19 

CONVERSATION  III. 
About  Animals  that  are  Tailors          ....  27 

CONVERSATION  IV. 
About  the  first  Paper  in  the  World  made  by  Wasps  •        -41 

CONVERSATION  V. 

A  Story  about  Tom  Smith,  and  of  Bees  with  Brushes  and 
Baskets,  and  of  a  Bird  with  a  Chisel,  and  a  Gnat  with  a 
Lancet 53 

CONVERSATION  VI. 

About  Animals  that  can  do  Mason's  Work         -        -        -    66 

CONVERSATION  VII. 

About  Animals  that  throw  Dirt  with  a  Spade';  and  about 
an  Animal  with  a  Hook ;  and  about  one  that  is  a  Wire- 
drawer  80 

CONVERSATION  VIII. 

About  a  Door,  with  a  Hinge  and  Spring  to  it,  made  by  a 
Spider;  and  the  Difference  between  GOD'S  Work  and 
Man's 94 


12  CONTENTS. 

Fai» 

CONVERSATION  IX. 

A  Story  about  a  Philosopher  and  his  Kite ;  and  about  Ants 
that  have  Awls,  and  build  Cities,  and  Stairs,  and  Bridges, 
and  many  other  Things 104 

CONVERSATION  X. 
More  about  the  white  Ants         ..."  .  120 

CONVERSATION  XL 

About  some  other  Ants  that  are  very  good  Masons,  and 
build  Walls  and  Ceilings ;  and  a  Story  about  a  very 
sensible  Ant  which  seemed  to  think  a  little  -  -  -  129 

CONVERSATION  XII. 

About  Ants  that  go  to  War,  and  fight  Battles ;  and  about 
some  that  are  Thieves,  and  have  Slaves  -  -  -  138 

CONVERSATION  XIII. 

A  Voyage ;  and  an  Animal  that  makes  itself  into  a  Ship  ; 
and  of  an  Insect  that  builds  a  Boat,  and  floats  about  in  a 
Canoe ;  and  of  another  that  pumps  Water,  and  wears  a 
Mask;  and  of  a  Spider  that  builds  a  Raft,  and  floats 
upon  it -  -  -  -  151 

CONVERSATION  XIV. 

About  an  Insect  with  Tweezers,  and  another  with  Pincers ; 
and  how  a  Fly's  Foot  is  made,  so  as  to  stick  to  the  Wall  167 

CONVERSATION  XV. 

How  Hats  are  made;  and  about  Animals  that  can  make 
Felt  like  the  Hatter 181 

CONVERSATION  XVI. 

About  Birds  that  are  Weavers,  and  the  Politician  Bird ;  a 
Story  about  some  Philosophers ;  and  what  may  be  learned 
from  these  Conversations  ...  -  -  202 


NATURAL    HISTORY. 


CONVERSATION  I. 

Uncle  Philip  tells  the  Children  about  a  Fly 
that  can  work  with  a  Saw  and  a  Rasp, 
like  the  Carpenter. 

"  WELL,  boys,  this  is  a  beautiful  day.  The 
sun  is  shining  brightly,  and  the  birds  are 
singing,  and  the  insects  are  flying  about,  and 
the  grass  is  green,  and  every  thing  appears 
pleasant,  and  you  feel  happy  too,  and  have 
come,  I  suppose,  to  see  old  Uncle  Philip." 

"  Yes,  Uncle  Philip,  we  are  tired  of  playing 
now,  and  so  we  have  come  to  ask  you  to  talk 
with  us,  and  tell  us  about  some  of  the 
curious  things  you  know." 

"Well,  boys,  I  will  tell  you  about  some 
very  strange  things.  I  will  talk  to  you  about 


14  CONVERSATIONS    ON 

animals  that  know  how  to  work  with  tools 
like  a  man." 

"Work  with  tools,  Uncle  Philip!  That 
is  strange  ;  but  we  know  it  is  so,  if  you  say 
so ;  because  you  will  not  tell  us  any  stories 
but  true  ones.  But  where  do  they  get  the 
tools  ?" 

"  Ah,  boys,  c  the  hand  that  made  them  is 
divine  /'  They  get  them  where  we  get  all 
that  is  useful  and  good, — from  GOD.  The 
Bible  says  that  He  l  is  wise  in  heart,  and  won- 
derful in  working  /  and  he  has  made  many 
a  poor  little  insect,  and  given  it  tools  to  work 
with  for  its  comfort,  as  good  and  perfect  as 
any  that  man  can  make.  Yes,  these  poor 
little  creatures  had  tools  long  before  man  had. 
GOD  cares  for  the  insects,  boys,  as  well  as 
for  us." 

"  But,  Uncle  Philip,  what  sort  of  tools  do 
you  mean  ?  Tell  us  about  them." 

"  Very  well,  I  will ;  do  you  think  of  some 
kind  of  tools  that  men  use  :  think  of  the  car- 
penter and  his  tools,  and  let  us  see  if  we  can- 
not find  some  of  them  among  the  insects." 

"  Why,  the  carpenter  has  a  saw.  Is  there 
any  saw  among  these  little  fellows  ?" 

"  Yes  indeed,  there  is ;  and  a  capital  saw 


NATURAL    HISTORY.  15 

it  is.  Now  listen,  and  I  will  tell  you  all  about 
it.  There  is  a  kind  of  fly  called  the  saw-fly  ; 
it  has  four  wings,  and  commonly  its  body  is 
yellow,  and  its  head  is  black ;  but  the  most 
curious  part  of  it  is  the  saw.  The  young 
ones  feed  upon  the  leaves  of  rose-bushes,  and 
gooseberries,  and  raspberries,  and  currants, 
and  several  other  kinds  of  bushes ;  and  the 
old  ones  always  lay  their  eggs  on  the  branches 
of  these  bushes,  so  that  the  young  ones  may 
have  something  to  eat  as  soon  as  they  come 
out.  It  uses  its  saw  to  make  a  place  in  the 
branch  to  put  its  egg  in." 

"  Uncle  Philip,  what  is  the  saw  made  of?" 
"  It  is  made  of  something  like  horn,  and 
is  fixed  very  nicely  in  a  case ;  it  resembles 
what  the  cabinet-makers  call  a  tenon-saw  more 
than  it  does  the  carpenter's  common  saw. 
The  tenon-saw  is  made  of  a  thin  plate  of 
steel,  and  has  a  stiff  brass  back,  to  keep  it  from 
bending.  The  brass  back  has  a  groove  in  it, 
and  the  saw  is  put  in  that  groove,  and  then 
it  is  fastened  to  it.  But  the  fly's  saw  is  fixed 
in  another  way :  there  is  a  back  to  it  too,  but 
that  back  is  not  fastened  to  the  saw.  The 
groove  is  in  the  saw,  and  there  is  a  ridge  all 
along  the  back-piece,  which  just  fits  in  the 


16  CONVERSATIONS   ON 

groove,  and  so  the  saw  slides  backwards  and 
forwards,  and  the  ridge  always  keeps  it  in  its 
place.  Besides  all  this,  boys,  the  fly  is  better 
off  than  the  cabinet-maker,  for  he  uses  only 
one  saw  at  a  time  ;  but  our  little  workman 
has  two  exactly  alike,  and  they  are  so  fixed 
that  the  creature  first  pushes  out  one,  and 
when  it  is  drawing  that  back,  pushes  out 
the  other ;  so  that  it  is  all  the  time  cutting, 
and  does  double  work.  I  think  the  fly's  saw 
is  the  best,  too,  for  another  reason.  The 
saws  of  the  carpenter  and  cabinet-maker 
have  their  teeth  bent ;  first,  one  a  little  on 
one  side,  and  then  the  next  to  it  a  little  on  the 
other  side,  and  so  on  to  the  end  of  the  saw ; 
so  that  when  sawing,  the  cut  may  be  wide 
enough  for  the  blade  to  move  easily.  Now 
the  fly's  saw  has  the  teeth  a  little  bent,  or 
twisted,  too ;  but  it  has  something  else :  on 
the  outside  of  every  tooth  there  are  a  great 
many  very  small  teeth,  so  that  the  outside  of 
every  one  is  just  like  a  rasp,  orjile" 

"  But,  Uncle  Philip,  it  must  take  them  a 
great  while  to  saw  a  very  little  cut ;  they  are 
so  small." 

"  Yes,  it  does ;  but  they  persevere.  It  takes 
them  more  than  an  hour  and  a  half  to  make 


NATURAL    HISTORY.  17 

one  groove,  and  sometimes  they  will  go  on 
and  make  as  many  as  six  without  stopping. 
That  shows,  boys,  what  perseverance  will  do." 

"  And  when  it  is  done  sawing,  Uncle  Philip, 
where  does  it  keep  its  saws  ?" 

"  Oh,  I  told  you  they  fitted  in  a  case ;  but 
when  the  fly  is  done  sawing,  it  uses  the  saws 
to  put  the  egg  in  the  place  cut  for  it,  and  then 
it  draws  the  saws  almost  entirely  into  the 
case,  and  drops  upon  the  egg  a  sort  of  frothy 
stuff  like  a  drop  of  soap-lather." 

"What  is  that  for?" 

"  I  suppose  it  is  to  glue  the  egg  fast,  or  else 
to  keep  the  juices  in  the  bush  from  hurt- 
ing it." 

"  Well,  this  is  a  curious  fly,  Uncle  Philip." 

"  It  is  strange,  boys,  because  you  never 
heard  of  it  before ;  but  it  is  a  cunning  fly,  as 
well  as  a  curious  one." 

"  What  does  it  do,  Uncle  Philip  ?" 

tc  Why,  when  it  is  frightened,  it  will  fold 
up  its  case  and  saws  under  its  body,  and  draw 
up  its  legs,  and  pretend  to  be  dead  ;  and  then 
it  will  not  move,  even  if  you  stick  a  pin 
through  it." 

"Can  you  tell  us  any  thing  more  about 
this  fly?" 

B2 


18  CONVERSATIONS    ON 

"  Nothing  very  strange,  boys  ;  but  we  have 
found  out  two  tools,  I  think,  a  saw  and  a  rasp, 
and  that  is  enough  for  one  poor  little  fly  to 
give  us.  Here,  boys,  are  pictures  of  these 
saws  ;  I  have  made  them  a  great  deal  larger 
than  they  are  in  the  fly,  so  that  you  can  see 
them  plainly." 


Saw  of  the  Saw-fly,  with  Raspa  shown  in  the  Cross-lines. 


Portion  of  the  Saw-fly's  comb-toothed  Rasp,  and  Saw 


NATURAL   HISTORY.  19 


CONVERSATION  II. 

Uncle  Philip  tells  the  Children  about  Grass- 
hoppers and  Bees,  that  bore  Holes  with 
a  Gimlet. 

"  WELL,  Uncle  Philip,  here  we  are  again,  to 
hear  more  about  the  tools  that  animals  work 
with  ;  we  have  seen  in  the  bark  of  trees,  and 
old  wooden  posts,  little  holes  as  round  as  a 
gimlet  could  make,  and  we  have  been  think- 
ing whether  any  of  these  little  creatures  have 
augers  and  gimlets,  as  well  as  saws.  Do 
you  know  of  any  of  them  that  can  bore 
holes?" 

"  Oh  yes,  boys  ;  I  know  of  more  than  one 
that  can  bore  as  smooth  and  round  ajiole  as 
any  carpenter  you  ever  saw.  There  are  some 
of  the  grasshoppers  that  have  an  excellent 
gimlet.  The  contrivance  has  five  pieces  in 
it ;  two  of  the  pieces  make  a  case  to  keep  the 
augers  in,  two  more  are  the  augers  or  borers, 
and  the  other  is  a  piece  between  the  two  borers 


20 


CONVERSATIONS    ON 


on  which  they  slide ;  this  piece  has  a  ridge  on 
each  side  of  it,  and  the  augers  have  a  groove 
which  exactly  fits  the  ridge.  Besides  this, 
each  auger  ends  in  a  knob,  and  that  knob  has 
teeth  all  around  it.  Here  is  a  picture  of  it." 


Ovipositors,  with  files,  of  the  Grasshopper,  magnified. 

"  But,  Uncle  Philip,  what  is  the  piece  with 
the  ridge  for  ?" 

"  Ah,  boys,  that  piece  shows  the  wisdom 
and  the  goodness  of  GOD.  '  His  tender  mer- 
cies are  over  all  his  works :'  he  has  placed 
that  piece  there  to  keep  the  borers  stiff,  so  that 
they  cannot  get  out  of  joint,  or  be  broken, 
when  the  little  workman  is  boring." 


NATURAL    HISTORY.  21 

"  Well,  this  is  very  curious." 

"  Yes ;  but  there  are  some  of  these  insect 
workmen  more  curious  still.  Did  you  ever 
see  a  spy-glass  ?  You  know  it  is  a  round, 
hollow  piece  of  wood,  with  brass  tubes  in  it, 
which  are  made  smaller  and  smaller,  so  as  to 
slide  into  one  another,  when  the  glass  is  not 
used.  Now  there  is  a  sort  of  gadfly  (she  is  a 
little  creature,  too)  which  has  exactly  such  a 
contrivance  to  keep  her  gimlet  in.  It  is  in 
four  pieces,  and  the  smallest  piece  ends  in 
five  sharp  points,  three  of  which  are  longer 
than  the  other  two :  she  twists  these  five  sharp 
points  into  one  piece,  and  as  some  are  longer 
and  some  shorter,  when  they  are  all  put  to- 
gether, they  make  a  sharp  edge  running  all 
around,  and  are  almost  exactly  like  an  au- 
ger or  gimlet.  When  she  wants  to  use  it, 
she  just  shoots  put  the  different  tubes,  so  as 
to  make  a  stem  for  the  gimlet ;  and  when  she 
is  done,  she  puts  all  back  into  its  case  again. 

"  Here  is  a  drawing  of  it,  and  I  think  that 
by  looking  at  it  you  will  understand  what 
I  have  been  telling  you:  I  do  not  know 
whether  men  learned  from  this  part  of  the  fly 
how  to  make  the  case  of  a  spy-glass  ;  but  I 
know  they  might  have  learned. 


CONVERSATIONS    ON 


Ovipositor  or  Gimlet  of  the  Gadfly,  greatly  magnified,  with  a  claw  and 
part  of  the  tube,  distinct. 

"  There  is  also  a  bee,  boys,  which  is  called 
the  carpenter-bee,  because  it  is  such  an  excel-^ 
lent  wood-borer^  It  commonly  looks  for  some 
old  post,  or  dry  plank,  or  withered  part  of  a 
tree,  to  work  in.  It  never  works  in  wood  that 
is  green  and  has  the  sap  or  juices  in  it ;  for 
the  bee  knows,  just  as  well  as  any  carpenter 
does,  that  it  is  very  hard  to  get  tools  through 
such  wood.  I  expect  that  you  have  seen 
sometimes,  when  an  old  post  or  dry  board  was 
split,  a  long  hollow  groove  in  the  middle  of  it, 


NATURAL    HISTORY.  23 

with  little  round  thin  pieces  of  something  like 
paper,  about  as  thick  as  a  wafer,  fastened  in 
it  by  their  edges,  one  above  the  other,  all  the 
way  through.  These  show  the  work  of  the 
carpenter-bee  :  she  bored  the  hole,  and  she  put 
those  little  partitions  like  paper  in  it,  to  sepa- 
rate the  cells  ;  and  more  than  that,  she  made 
the  partitions  out  of  the  dust  she  got  by  bor- 
ing. She  always  likes,  too,  to  get  a  piece  of 
wood  in  a  place  where  the  sun  can  shine  on 
it ;  and  when  she  has  made  her  choice,  she 
begins  to  bore  at  first  into  the  post  in  a  slant- 
ing direction,  and  as  soon  as  she  has  gone 
far  enough  in,  she  then  turns  and  bores 
straight,  with  the  grain  of  the  wood." 

"  Does  she  do  it  quickly,  Uncle  Philip  V 

"  Not  very  quickly,  for  sometimes  the  wood 
is  very  hard ;  I  have  seen  one  of  these  holes 
nearly  twelve  inches  long  in  a  very  hard  oak 
board.  Sometimes  she  has  to  work  at  it  for 
months ;  but  she  works  steadily,  boys,  and 
that  does  a  great  deal.  What  makes  it  more 
tiresome  is,  that  the  poor  little  creature  has  to 
bring  out  all  the  dust  she  makes  by  boring." 

"How  large  is  the  hole?" 

"  Oh,  large  enough  to  put  my  forefinger  in, 
and  sometimes  fifteen  inches  long.  After  she 
has  bored  it  as  deep  as  is  necessary,  she  begins 


24  CONVERSATIONS    ON 

to  divide  it  into  separate  cells.  So  she  com- 
mences at  the  bottom,  and  puts  in  a  quantity  of 
what  is  called  bee-bread,  until  it  reaches  about 
an  inch  in  height ;  on  the  top  of  this  she  lays 
an  egg,  and  the  bread  is  put  there  to  feed  the 
young  one  as  soon  as  it  comes  out  of  the  egg. 
She  then  makes  a  floor  over  it  out  of  the  dust, 
%  as  I  told  you  ;  she  knows  how  to  glue  this 
dust  together,  and  she  brings  it  grain  by  grain 
from  the  heap  in  which  she  put  it  when  she 
first  brought  it  out :  and  she  always  begins 
by  gluing  the  dust  around  the  outside  of  the 
hole  she  has  bored,  and  then  glues  another 
ring  to  that,  and  then  another,  and  another, 
making  each  ring  smaller  and  smaller,  until 
she  has  it  all  filled ;  so  that  her  floor,  when  it 
is  done,  appears  like  a  parcel  of  rings  of 
smaller  and  smaller  sizes  placed  within  each 
other.  On  the  top  of  this  floor  she  puts  bee- 
bread,  as  before,  and  places  another  egg  on  it, 
and  then  covers  it  with  a  floor  again ;  and  so 
she  goes  on  making  cells  and  filling  them  with 
bread,  and  covering  each  with  a  floor,  until 
she  has  filled  up  the  hole." 

"  Uncle  Philip,  how  do  the  young  bees  get 
out  when  the  egg  is  hatched  ?  It  seems  as  if 
they  were  shut  up  for  ever  in  prison." 

"  No,  boys ;  there  is  a  way  for  them  to  get 


NATURAL    HISTORY.  25 

out,  and  it  shows  the  wonderful  wisdom  of 
God  in  teaching  this  poor  bee  how  to  contrive 
the  matter.  The  egg  which  is  put  in  the 
lowest  cell  being  the  oldest,  the  little  worm 
that  is  afterward  to  be  a  bee  will  come  out 
of  that  one  first :  now,  you  know,  he  never 
could  get  through  all  the  cells  over  his  head, 
filled  as  they  are  with  bee-bread,  so  as  to  come 
out  at  the  top  of  the  hole.  If  he  gets  out  at 
all,  then,  it  must  be  at  the  bottom.  The  old 
bee  knows  this,  and  she  so  arranges  these 
eggs  that  when  the  worm  comes  out  it  will  be 
with  his  head  pointed  downwards  ;  he  falls  to 
eating  his  bread,  and  so  eats  himself  down  to 
the  bottom  of  his  cell,  and  there  he  finds  that 
his  mother  has  bored  a  hole  from  his  cell  to 
the  outside,  and  through  that  he  comes  out. 
When  his  brother  in  the  cell  above  him  has 
eaten  his  way  down  to  the  bottom  of  his  cell, 
he  just  eats  through  the  floor  and  gets  into 
the  cell  below,  which  is  then  empty,  you 
know,  and  walks  out  at  the  same  hole  which 
his  older  brother  used  before  him.  And  so  all 
the  rest  one  after  another  eat  their  way  down- 
wards into  the  empty  cells  below  them,  and 
get  out  at  the  same  back-door,  which  their 
mother  made  by  what  we  call  her  instinct, 
c 


CONVERSATIONS    ON 


which  just  means  the  share  of  wisdom  which 
God  gives  to  the  lower  animals  to  show  them 
how  to  take  care  of  themselves." 


A,  represents  a  part  of  a  post,  tunnelled  in  several  places  by  the  violet 
carpenter-bee ;  the  stick  is  split,  and  shows  the  nests  and  passages  by 
which  they  are  approached.  C,  a  piece  of  thin  stick,  pierced  by  the  car- 
penter-bee, and  split,  to  show  the  nests.  D,  perspective  view  of  one  of 
the  partitions.  E,  carpenter-bee.  F,  teeth  of  the  carpenter-bee,  greatly 
magnified ;  a,  the  upper  side ;  &,  lower  side. 


NATURAL    HISTORY.  27 

"  Why,  that  instinct,  as  you  call  it,  Uncle 
Philip,  is  a  curious  thing." 

"  Very  curious,  very  curious  indeed,  boys } 
and  at  some  other  time,  if  you  wish,  we  will 
talk  more  about  it,  and  I  will  tell  you  a  great 
many  stories  of  animals,  which  will  show  you 
their  instinct.  But  for  this  time  I  have  told 
you  enough  to  keep  you  thinking  until  we 
meet  again.  So  now  just  look  at  this  picture 
of  the  carpenter-bee's  house,  and  then  you 
may  go  home." 


CONVERSATION  III. 

Uncle  Philip  tells  the  Children  about  Ani- 
mals that  are  Tailors. 

"  UNCLE  PHILIP,  we  are  very  glad  to  see 
you,  and  we  think  we  have  found  out  some- 
thing to  ask  you,  about  a  kind  of  work  which 
men  do,  that  no  other  animal  can  accomplish. 
As  we  came  along  this  morning  to  visit  you, 
and  were  talking  of  what  you  had  told  us  of 
insects  that,  like  carpenters,  could  saw  wood 


28  CONVERSATIONS    ON 

and  bore  holes  in  it,  we  passed  by  the  tailor's 
shop,  near  the  church ;  c  and  now,'  said  we, 
'we  have  found  out  something  which  will 
puzzle  good  Uncle  Philip  :  there  are  surely  no 
tailors  among  the  lower  animals ;  so  we  will 
ask  him  to-day  to  talk  about  creatures  that 
can  cut  out  cloth  and  sew  it  up  with  a 
needle.3" 

"  Ah,  my  dear  children,  there  are  a  great 
many  things  which  would  puzzle  Uncle  Philip. 
I  do  not  know  every  thing ;  nor  do  I  suppose 
that  I  can  find  every  trade  in  the  world  among 
the  dumb  creatures  which  God  has  made. 
But  you  have  made  a  bad  choice  of  a  puzzle 
this  morning,  my  boys ;  for  there  are  tailors 
among  the  inferior  creatures,  and  some  pretty 
nice  ones,  too  ;  at  any  rate,  they  alm^s  cut 
so  as  to  fit  exactly." 

"  Why,  Uncle  Philip  !  You  do  not  mean 
to  say  that  they  can  cut  out  cloth,  and  then 
sew  it  up  again  with  a  needle  and  thread !" 

"  No,  boys ;  I  do  not  think  it  is  to  be  ex- 
pected that  they  should  take  a  pair  of  shears 
and  cut  a  piece  of  cloth,  or  put  a  piece  of 
thread  through  the  eye  of  a  steel  needle ;  any 
more  than  we  expect  the  insect  that  saws,  to 
go  to  the  cabinet-maker,  and  borrow  his  tool 


NATURAL   HISTORY.  29 

10  work  with.  But  with  the  instruments 
which  God  has  given  to  them,  they  will  cut 
what  is  cloth  to  them,  the  leaves  of  trees  and 
flowers,  and  will  sew  them  together  too  :  and, 
now  I  think  of  it,  there  is  one  that  will  cut 
his  garments  out  of  our  cloth." 

"Pray  let  us  hear  about  them.  Uncle 
Philip." 

"  Softly,  boys,  softly.  I  have  two  things  to 
say  to  you  before  I  begin.  In  the  first  place,  I 
am  very  glad  to  hear  that  you  think  and  talk 
among  yourselves  about  the  things  which  I 
tell  you  :  and  in  the  next  place,  I  know  that 
you  love  me,  and  therefore  would  not  wish, 
by  puzzling  me,  as  you  call  it,  to  produce 
mortification  or  vexation  ;  nor  do  I  think  that 
I  should  have  felt  either  vexed  or  mortified 
had  I  not  been  able  to  find  tailors  among  the 
lower  animals ;  but  I  do  not  wish  you  to  take 
pleasure  in  puzzling  people ;  for  it  is  very  apt 
to  produce  in  you  a  feeling  of  triumph,  and  to 
make  you  vain :  and  you  must  remember 
that  for  one  of  your  questions  which  cannot 
be  answered,  a  thousand  might  be  put  to  you, 
of  the  answer  to  which  you  would  be  igno- 
rant. No  man,  my  dear  boys,  knows  every 
thing.  Wise  men  talk  with  each  other,  that 
c2 


30  CONVERSATIONS   ON 

they  may  learn  from  each  other;  and  the 
wisest  are  not  ashamed  to  acknowledge  their 
ignorance  of  some  things ;  and  I  believe  they 
take  very  little  pleasure  in  puzzling.  It  is 
our  duty  to  learn  all  that  we  can,  and  to  be 
always  willing  at  a  proper  time  to  teach 
others  what  we  know." 

"  Thank  you,  dear  Uncle  Philip,  for  your 
advice.  We  did  not  mean  to  triumph  over 
y&u,  if  you  had  not  been  able  to  tell  us  of 
tailors  among  the  animals.  But  we  see  that 
you  are  right.  We  might  get  a  foolish  habit, 
which  would  do  us  harm." 

"  Exactly  what  I  meant,  boys ;  and  now 
let  us  begin.  And  first  we  will  talk  of  the 
cutting  out,  as  the  tailor  always  does  that  be- 
fore he  sews.  There  is  a  kind  of  bee*  which, 
like  some  of  the  insects  we  have  already 
spoken  of,  is  furnished  with  a  borer.  With 
this  she  forms  a  round  hole,  like  that  made 
with  an  auger  or  gimlet,  in  a  hard-trodden 
path,  or  sometimes  in  a  piece  of  soft  decayed 
wood.  It  is  in  making  her  nest  in  this  hole 
that  she  plays  the  part  of  a  tailor,  for  the  nest 
is  made  of  leaves,  sometimes  taken  from  the 
rose,  at  others  from  the  birch,  ash,  or  other 

*  Megachilo  centunculari*. 


NATURAL    HISTORY.  31 

trees.  The  little  creature  cuts  them  com- 
monly, and  I  believe  always,  into  two  shapes. 
They  are  either  half-oval,  that  is,  half  the 
shape  of  the  bowl  of  a  spoon,  or  round,  and 
are  of  different  sizes.  Sometimes  she  makes 
a  mistake  in  the  size,  and  when  she  finds  it 
out,  she  alters  it.  These  leaves  are  prepared 
to  line  the  hole  which  she  has  bored,  and  she 
begins  with  the  largest  pieces ;  taking  them 
into  the  hole,  she  winds  around  in  it,  until 
she  has  spread  very  smoothly  a  tube  of  leaves 
the  whole  length  of  it ;  she  then  closes  up 
one  end  of  it  by  rounding  it  off  and  doubling 
the  pieces  of  leaf  one  over  another.  In  this 
case  she  sets  about  making  her  cells.  She 
takes  three  of  her  half  oval  pieces  which  have 
been  cut  to  fit,  and  contrives  to  roll  them,  s< 
that  the  edge  of  one  piece  will  just  lap  ove 
the  edge  of  the  next ;  these,  when  she  has  fin- 
ished rolling  them,  make  the  hollow  of  the 
cell,  which  is  not  quite  an  inch  high.  She 
next  turns  up  the  ends  of  these  pieces,  which 
are  cut  to  fit,  so  as  to  form  the  bottom :  she 
then  sets  to  work  with  three  other  pieces 
rolled  in  the  same  way  inside  of  the  cell  just 
finished,  turning  up  their  ends  as  before  to 
form  the  bottom  ;  and  within  these  she  again 


re 

\ 

ie    ^ 


32  CONVERSATIONS   ON 

works  three  others,  so  that  her  cell,  when  it  is 
done,  is  of  nine  thicknesses  of  leaves.  And 
you  see  why,  though  she  cuts  the  pieces  of  the 
same  shape,  they  are  not  all  of  one  size :  they 
are  of  three  sizes,  so  as  to  make  the  cells 
within  each  other  smaller  and  smaller." 

"  Bi*t,  Uncle  Philip,  you  have  not  said  any 
thing  about  the  round  pieces  which  she  cuts ; 
how  does  she  use  them  ?" 

"  I  will  tell  you :  after  she  has  finished  one 
cell  she  lays  an  egg  in  it,  and  fills  it  all  round 
with  food  nearly  liquid ;  now  as  the  cell  is 
lying  down  on  its  side,  all  this  liquid  food 
would  run  'out  if  it  were  not  corked  up,  and 
the  bee  therefore  uses  her  circular  pieces  to 
stop  up  the  cells." 

("And  does  she  really  make  these  round 
ieces  to  fit  the  cell  ?" 

"  Yes,  boys,  exactly ;  and  they  are  cut  too  as 
regularly  as  if  they  had  been  first  measured 
and  marked  with  a  pair  of  compasses.  And, 
more  than  this,  the  little  creature  will  fit  one  in 
in  less  than  a  minute.  But  the  most  curious 
thing  is,  that  sometimes  she  will  fly  off  to  a 
distance  to  get  this  round  piece,  and  bring 
back  one  which  will  exactly  suit ;  so  that  it 
really  seems  as  if  she  carried  the  size  in  her 


NATURAL    HISTORY. 


33 


head.  After  finishing  one  cell  she  will  make 
another,  until  she  has  completed  as  many  as 
she  wants ;  and  then,  as  she  always  builds 
them  one  upon  another,  they  appear  like  a 
parcel  of  thimbles  stuck  into  each  other  and 
put  into  a  case :  and  here  is  a  picture  of  it." 


Rose-leaf-cutter  Bees,  and  Nest  lined  with  Rose-leaves 

"  This  is   very  wonderful,  Uncle   Philip ; 
and  it  does  seem  like  cutting  out  pieces  to  fit." 


34  CONVERSATIONS   ON 

"  Very  true :  but  this  is  not  the  only  cutter- 
out  of  leaves  among  the  bees.  There  is  an- 
other kind,  called  the  poppy-bee,*  because  it 
uses  the  scarlet  leaves  of  the  poppy-flower  to 
line  its  cell.  It  makes  its  hole  in.  the  ground, 
as  smooth  and  regular  and  polished  as  can  be, 
and  then  proceeds  to  line  it  all  around  with 
pieces  of  the  leaves,  and  cuts  them  to  fit  as 
she  goes  on.  If  a  piece  is  too  large  she  will 
trim  it  down  to  the  proper  size  and  shape,  and 
always  carries  away  the  scraps.  Now  if  you 
should  take  a  pair  of  scissors  and  try  to  cut 
the  leaf  of  a  poppy-flower,  you  would  wrinkle 
it,  but  this  little  workman  will  spread  out  what 
she  cuts  as  smooth  as  glass.  When  she  has 
lined  this  hole  throughout,  and  carried  the 
lining  out  beyond  the  entrance,  she  fills  it  with 
honey  and  pollen,  or  bee-bread,  as  it  is  called, 
about  half  an  inch  high,  lays  an  egg,  then 
folds  down  the  leaves  on  it,  and  finally  fills 
the  upper  part  with  earth." 

"Then  she  was  not  working  for  herself?" 

"  No ;  she  was  providing  a  house  for  her 
young,  and  GOD  has  taught  her  thus  to  take 
care  of  it. 

"I  will  now  tell  you  of  another  little  work- 

*  Osmia  papaveris. 


NATURAL    HISTORY.  35 

man,  which  I  have  heard  called  the  cloak- 
maker,  because  it  makes  for  itself  a  mantle 
which  really  appears  very  much  like  a  cloak ; 
and,  stranger  still,  this  cloak  is  lined  through 
out  with  silk." 

"  Can  it  be  possible,  Uncle  Philip  T 
"  Listen,  and  you  shall  hear.  These  man- 
tle-looking cases  are  made  by  the  larva,  as  it 
is  called,  or  grub  of  a  little  moth  which  forms 
a  covering  of  pure  silk  ;  this  silk  it  spins 
from  itself;  it  is  not  woven  so  as  to  appear 
like  our  silk,  but  still  it  is  real  silk,  and 
is  worked  into  a  great  many  thin  scales, 
which  lap  over  one  another  like  the  scales 
of  a  fish.  But  this  is  only  the  lining  of 
the  cloak.  This  little  tailor  is  the  field-moth, 
which  first  eats  what  it  wants  from  a  green 
leaf,  and  then,  from  the  thin  membranes  left, 
sets  about  making  its  mantle  :  and  it  makes 
it  of  two  pieces  out  out  and  joined  together 
with  a  seam,  just  as  a  tailor  would  make  it." 
"  How  does  it  go  to  work,  Uncle  Philip  ?" 
"  Why,  I  will  give  you  the  account  as  it 
was  given  by  a  gentleman*  who  was  very  fond 
of  observing  insects,  and  who  watched  one  of 
these  little  creatures.  He  says  that  from  the 

*  Reaumur. 


36 


CONVERSATIONS   ON 


thin  membrane  of  the  leaf  it  first  cut  two 
pieces  just  equal  in  size  and  of  exactly  the 
same  shape ;  each  of  these  pieces  was  to  form 
one-half  of  the  cloak,  and  this  he  says  was 
done  wonderfully  fast.  He  noticed,  too,  that 
one  end  of  each  piece,  that  which  was  meant 
for  the  bottom  of  the  cloak,  was  just  twice  as 
long  as  the  other  end,  which  was  the  top. 
The  insect  then  placed  itself  between  the  two 
pieces  while  they  were  lying  flat ;  it  afterward 
brought  the  two  sides  where  the  seam  was  to 
be,  together,  and  fastened  them  at  certain 
places,  still  leaving,  however,  considerable 
spaces  open.  It  then  began  to  turn  and  twist 
its  body  about  in  all  directions,  until  it 
moulded  the  pieces  into  a  hollow  form  to  fit. 
When  it  found  that  it  would  fit  its  body,  it 
brought  the  edges  of  the  seam  close  together 
through  the  whole  length,  and  contrived  to 
sew  or  fasten  them  so  neatly  together,  that 
when  the  gentleman  looked,  even  with  a  mag- 
nifying-glass,  he  said  he  could  hardly  find  the 
seam.  The  whole  was  lined  with  the  silk 
spun  from  itself,  and  was  finished  in  about 
twelve  hours." 

"  Why,  this  little  workman  is  the  strangest 
of  all :  but,  Uncle  Philip,  you  said  there  was 


NATURAL    HISTORY.  37 

one  of  these  animal  tailors  that  cut  his  gar- 
ment out  of  cloth :  pray  tell  us  of  him." 

"  When  I  said  that,  boys,  I  was  thinking  of 
the  clothes-moth.*  They  make  their  coats 
of  wool  commonly  taken  from  our  cloth,  and 
silk  drawn  from  their  own  mouths  ;  and  the 
strangest  thing  concerning  them  is,  that  when 
they  outgrow  their  clothes  they  will  piece 
them  to  make  them  larger.  Suppose  the  in- 
sect wants  it  longer,  it  adds  a  new  ring  of 
wool  to  the  end  :  suppose  it  wants  it  wider,  it 
slits  the  case  or  garment,  not  from  one  end  to 
the  other,  for  this  would  leave  it  naked,  but  it 
splits  it  half-way  down  the  sides,  and  when  it 
has  filled  it  in  with  proper  pieces,  it  splits  the 
remaining  half,  and  puts  other  pieces  in  them. 
There  is  another  curious  thing  about  this 
tailor :  it  always  makes  its  coat  of  the  same 
colour  with  the  cloth  from  which  it  takes  the 
wool ;  so  that  if  it  has  first  made  its  garment 
of  a  piece  of  blue  cloth,  and  is  placed  on  a 
bit  of  red  cloth  when  it  wishes  to  enlarge  it, 
you  will  see  its  work  exactly,  for  the  pieces 
which  it  puts  in  will  be  red.  This  is  the  little 
fellow,  boys,  which  does  so  much  mischief  to 
our  clothes." 

*  Tinea  sarcitella. 
D 


38  CONVERSATIONS   ON 

"  Well,  Uncle  Philip,  one  can  almost  forgive 
his  mischief  for  the  sake  of  his  ingenuity. 
But  you  have  said  nothing  yet  about  needles  ; 
how  do  these  little  creatures  sew  ?" 

"  Why,  they  have  what  serves  as  a  needle 
to  them  :  but  I  can  tell  you  of  another  animal 
which  sews  with  a  needle  a  great  deal  plainer 
to  be  seen  than  that  of  these  little  insects." 

"  Pray  let  us  hear  of  him,  Uncle  Philip." 

"I  must  go  among  the  birds  to  find  this 
workman.  There  is  a  kind  of  starling,  called 
the  orchard  starling,*  about  which,  Mr.  Wilson, 
a  gentleman  who  has  written  a  great  deal  con- 
cerning the  birds  of  our  country,  gives  a  very 
curious  account.  He  says  that  this  bird  com- 
monly hangs  its  nest  from  the  twigs  of  an  ap- 
ple-tree, and  makes  it  in  a  very  singular  man- 
ner. The  outside  is  made  of  a  particular  kind 
of  long  tough  grass,  that  will  bend  without 
breaking,  and  this  grass  is  knit  or  sewed 
through  and  through  in  a  thousand  direc- 
tions, just  as  if  done  with  a  needle.  The  little 
creature  does  it  with  its  feet  and  bill.  Mr. 
AVilson  says  that  he  one  day  showed  one  of 
these  nests  to  an  old  lady,  and  she  was  so 
much  struck  with  the  work  that  she  asked 

*  Icterus  mutatus. 


NATURAL    HISTORY.  39 

him,  half  in  earnest,  if  he  did  not'  think  that 
these  birds  could  be  taught  to  darn  stockings  ? 
Mr.  Wilson  took  the  pains  too  to  draw  out  one 
of  these  grass  threads,  and  found  that  it  mea- 
sured thirteen  inches,  and  in  that  distance  the 
bird  who  used  it  had  passed  it  in  and  out 
thirty -four  times." 

"  Why,  this  was  sewing,  sure  enough." 

"  Yes ;  and  I  saw,  when  I  was  in  the  West 
Indies,  another  kind  of  starling*  which  will 
cut  leaves  into  a  shape  like  the  quarter  of  an 
orange-rind,  and  sew  the  whole  very  neatly  to 
the  under  side  of  a  banana-leaf,  so  as  to 
make  one  side  of  the  nest.  But,  boys,  there 
is  another  most  beautiful  little  bird,  which  is 
called  the  tailor-bird,  because  it  sews  so  well.t 
It  first  picks  out  a  plant  with  large  leaves,  then 
it  gathers  cotton  from  the  shrub,  and  with  the 
help  of  its  fine  long  bill  and  slender  little  feet 
it  spins  this  cotton  into  a  thread,  and  then 
using  its  bill  for  a  needle,  it  will  sew  these 
large  leaves  together  to  hide  its  nest,  and  sew 
them  very  neatly,  too." 

"  Why,  dear  Uncle  Philip,  this  is  the  most 
wonderful  tailor  of  them  all." 

"  He  is,  indeed :  but,  my  children,  what  do 

*  Icterus  bonana.  t  Sylvia  sutoria. 


40  CONVERSATIONS    ON 

we  learn  from  all  that  I  have  been  telling  you? 
Who  made  these  little  creatures  with  such 
curious  skill,  and  taught  them  to  work  so 
well  ?  It  was  the  same  God  who  made  us ; 
for  such  wonderful  things  never  came  from 
what  people  call  chance.  Chance,  boys,  never 
made  any  thing  :  and  how  very  wise  he  must 
be  to  form  such  nice  little  workmen  ;  and  how 
very  good  thus  to  teach  them  how  to  take  care 
of  themselves.  The  Bible  says,  truly,  that 
1  his  tender  mercies  are  over  all  his  works.' 
And  I  think,  boys,  we  may  learn  another 
thing  :  it  is,  not  to  be  so  very  proud  of  what 
we  know ;  for  I  rather  suppose  that  we  shall 
often  find  that  the  lower  creatures  around  us 
understood  many  of  our  trades  long  before  we 
found  them  out." 

"  Yes,  Uncle  Philip,  it  is  likely  that  these 
little  fellows  you  have  been  telling  us  of  this 
morning  were  the  first  tailors  in  the  world." 

"Very  likely,  very  likely  indeed,  boys. 
But  now  I  must  bid  you  good  morning ;  for 
here  comes  our  good  clergyman,  and  I  am 
going  with  him  to  see  a  poor  sick  woman." 

"  Good  morning,  Uncle  Philip ;  we  will 
come  again  on  Saturday." 


NATURAL   HISTORY.  41 


CONVERSATION  IV. 

Uncle  Philip  tells  the  Children  about  the  first 
Paper  in  the  World,  made  by  Wasps. 

"  AH,  boys  !  how  do  you  do  ?  This  is  Sat- 
urday, and  I  have  been  expecting  to  see  you 
come  for  some  time." 

"  Why,  Uncle  Philip,  we  should  have  been 
here  sooner,  but  we  went  round  by  the  old 
mill;  because  we  thought  that  perhaps  we 
might  find  in  some  of  the  old  timbers,  holes 
bored  by  some  of  those  industrious  little  car- 
penters you  told  us  about." 

"  Well ;  and  did  you  find  any  ?" 

"  No  ;  but  we  found  something  else,  which 
we  have  brought  to  show  you  :  and  we  have 
been  talking  about  it  all  the  way.  We  have 
not  discovered  any  new  tools  among  the  ani- 
mals, but  we  think  we  have  found  out  a  trade 
that  some  of  them  work  at ;  and  we  wish  you 
to  tell  us  if  we  are  right." 

"  Oh,  that  I  will  do,  with  pleasure,  if  I  can. 


42  CONVERSATIONS    ON 

What  is  the  trade  that  you  think  you  have 
discovered  ?" 

"It  is  paper-making,  Uncle  Philip.     We 

r  fe^ve  found  this  part  of  a  wasp's  nest,  which 

we  have  brought  along ;  and  as  you  told  us 

it  was    always  best   to    notice    every  thing 

closely,  we  examined  this,  and  it  appeared  so 

much  like  coarse  paper  that  we  thought  (for 

we  knew  it  was  made  by  wasps)  that  man  did 

iot  make  the  first  paper  in  the  world." 

"  Well,  boys,  that  was  not  a  bad  thought. 
Now  you  see  the  advantage  of  taking  notice 
of  things,  and  of  thinking  about  what  you 
see.  You  are  perfectly  right  in  supposing 
that  wasps  make  paper  ;  and,  if  you  please,  we 
will  talk  this  morning  about  the  wasps." 

"  Oh  yes,  yes,  by  all  means,  Uncle  Philip  ; 
and  we  will  thank  you,  too." 

"I  must  first  tell  you,  then,  that  of  the 
wasps  there  are  several  kinds.  Some  build 
their  nests  under  ground,  and  some  hang 
theirs  in  the  air  to  the  limb  of  a  tree.  This 
part  of  a  nest  which  you  have  found  be- 
longed to  the  last  kind ;  but  I  will  tell  you 
something  about  both.  But  before  I  begin  let 
me  get  some  drawings  I  have,  which  will  help 
us  to  understand  better.  I  have  them.  And 


NATURAL   HISTORY.  43 

now,  of  the  wasps  which  build  under  ground. 
As  soon  as  the  warm  season  begins,  the  first 
care  of  the  mother-wasp  is  to  look  for  a  fit 
place  in  which  to  build ;  and  in  the  spring  of 
the  year  she  may  very  often  be  seen  flying 
about  a  hole  in  the  bank  of  a  ditch,  and  look- 
ing into  it.  These  holes  which  she  examines 
are  the  old  houses  of  field-mice  or  moles,  and 
some  persons  have  thought,  what  I  expect  is 
true,  that  she  likes  to  take  such  old  holes,  be- 
cause they  save  her  a  great  deal  of  hard  work. 
But  still,  as  the  holes  are  not  large  enough  for 
her  use,  she  has  a  great  deal  of  labour  to 
make  them  do.  So  she  goes  at  once  to  work, 
digging  in  the  hole  she  has  chosen,  and 
makes  a  winding,  zigzag  gallery,  about  two 
feet  long,  and  about  an  inch  in  width.  She 
digs  out  the  earth,  and  carries  it  out,  or 
pushes  it  out  behind  her  as  she  goes  on. 
This  gallery  ends  in  a  ]arge$chamber  or  hole 
from  one  to  two  feet  across  when  it  is  done  : 
and  now  she  is  ready  to  begin  her  nest." 

"  Now  then,  Uncle  Philip,  she  will  begin  to 
make  paper,  will  she  not  ?" 

"  Yes ;  but  here  I  ought  to  tell  you  that  it 
was  a  long  time  before  men  found  out  what 
she  made  it  of.  Do  you  remember  my  tell- 


44  CONVERSATIONS    ON 

ing  you  of  a  gentleman  who  watched  the 
little  cloak-maker  to  see  how  he  made  his 
garment  ?  Well,  this  gentleman,  whose  name 
was  Reaumur,  was  trying  for  twenty  years, 
he  says,  to  find  out  how  the  wasp  made 
paper,  before  he  succeeded.  At  last,  one  day, 
he  saw  a  female  wasp  alight  on  the  sash  of 
his  window  and  begin  to  gnaw  the  wood  ;  he 
watched  her,  and  saw  that  she  pulled  off  from 
the  wood  fibre  after  fibre,  about  the  tenth  part 
of  an  inch  long,  and  not  so  large  as  a  hair. 
She  gathered  these  up  into  a  knot  with  her 
feet,  and  then  flew  to  another  part  of  the  sash, 
and  went  to  work,  stripping  off  more  fibres  or 
threads,  and  putting  them  to  the  bundle  she 
had  already.  At  last  he  caught  her,  to  ex- 
amine the  bundle,  and  found  that  its  colour 
was  exactly  like  that  of  a  wasp's  nest ;  but 
the  little  ball  was  dry;  she  had  not  yet 
wetted  it  to  make  a  pulp  of  it  which  could 
be  spread  out.  He  noticed  another  thing, 
that  this  bundle  was  not  at  all  like  wood 
gnawed  by  other  insects  ;  it  was  not  sawdust, 
but  threads  of  some  little  length  bruised  into 
lint.  He  then  set  to  work  himself  with  his 
penknife,  and  very  soon  scraped  and  bruised 
some  of  the  wood  of  the  same  window-sash, 


NATURAL    HISTORY. "  45 

so  as  to  make  a  litle  ball  exactly  like  the 
wasp's.  Mr.  Reaumur  thought  that  this  was 
the  stuff  out  of  which  the  wasp  made  paper,  and 
it  has  since  been  found  out  that  he  was  right. 
The  animal  wets  its  little  bundle  of  bruised 
wooden  fibres  or  threads  with  a  kind  of  glue 
that  it  has,  and  this  makes  it  stick  together 
like  pulp  or  paste ;  and  while  it  is  soft,  the 
wasp  walks  backwards,  and  spreads  it  out 
with  her  feet  and  her  tongue,  until  she  has 
made  it  almost  as  thin  as  the  thinnest  paper. 
With  this  she  lines  the  top  of  the  hole  in 
which  she  is  going  to  build  her  nest,  for  she 
always  begins  at  the  top.  But  this  is  so  thin 
that  it  would  be  too  weak  to  keep  the  dirt 
from  falling  in  ;  and  therefore  she  goes  on 
spreading  her  papers  one  upon  the  other 
until  she  has  made  the  wall  nearly  two  inches 
thick.  These  pieces  are  not  laid  exactly  flat 
on  each  other  like  two  pieces  of  pasteboard, 
but  with  little  open  spaces  between,  being 
joined  at  the  edges  only.  This  is  the  ceiling ; 
and  when  it  is  finished  she  begins  to  build 
what  may  be  called  the  highest  floor  of  the 
nest ;  this  she  makes  of  the  same  paper  in  a 
great  number  of  little  cells  all  joined  together 
at  the  sides ;  and  instead  of  fastening  this 


46  CONVERSATIONS    ON 

floor  to  the  sides  of  the  nest,  she  hangs  it  to 
the  ceiling  by  rods  made  also  out  of  this 
paper :  these  rods  are  small  in  the  middle, 
and  grow  larger  towards  the  ends,  so  as  to  be 
stronger.  Here  is  a  drawing  of  one. 


The  Cut  represents  one  of  the  Rods  from  which  the  Floors  are  suspended 

She  then  makes  a  second  floor,  and  hangs 
it  under  the  first  by  rods  as  before  ;  and  the 
whole  of  it,  when  finished,  if  it  should  be  cut 
straight  through  the  middle,  would  appear 
something  like  the  following  picture  of  one 
which  I  made  some  years  ago." 


NATURAL    HISTORY. 


47 


_, 


i  a 


i3msa^-± 


Section  of  the  Social-Wasp's  Nest. — aa,  the  outer  wall ;  &,  c«,  fire 
small  terraces  of  cells  for  the  neuter  wasps  ;  dd,  ee,  three  rows  of  large 
cells  for  the  males  and  females. 


"  This  is  a  very  ingenious  little  paper- 
maker,  Uncle  Philip." 

"Yes,  boys,  it  is  so.  This  of  which  I 
have  been  telling  you  is  the  ground-wasp. 
The  tree-wasp  makes  its  nest  of  paper  pre- 
pared in  the  same  way;  and  the  nests  are 
of  different  shapes.  One  makes  it  in  a  round 


48  CONVERSATIONS    ON 

flattened  ball,  not  much  larger  than  a  rose, 
and  when  cut  open  it  shows  layer  upon  layer 
of  leaves  of  the  same  thin  grayish-looking 
paper.  This  kind  is  not  so  common,  how- 
ever. Here  is  one  of  their  nests. 


Wasp's  Nest. 

"  Another  makes  its  nest  of  cells  placed  in 
separate  floors,  but  without  any  outer  wall  to 
keep  off  the  rain  ;  and  the  most  curious  thing 
in  this  nest  is,  that  it  is  not  placed  in  a  hori- 
zontal way ;  that  is,  it  is  not  placed  with  the 
floors  level,  because  then  the  cells  would  catch 
the  rain,  and  the  nest  would  be  spoiled ;  but 
it  is  always  placed  slanting,  so  that  the  rain 


NATURAL   HISTORY. 


49 


may  run  off.  It  is  always  placed,  too,  so  as 
to  face  the  north  or  the  west,  and  I  suppose  it 
is  because  the  wasp  knows  that  it  is  in  more 
danger  of  rain  from  the  south  and  the  east. 
Here  is  a  nest  of  this  kind." 


Wasp's  Cells  attached  to  a  branch. 

"  Ah,  Uncle  Philip  !  this  must  be  a  kind 
of  lazy  wasp.  It  does  not  choose  to  take  the 
trouble  to  cover  up  the  house,  and  so  it  hangs 
it  slanting,  to  make  the  rain  run  off." 

"  It  may  be  so,  boys ;  but  I  think  that  in 
making  this  wasp  lazy,  you  make  it  a  very 
sensible  wasp  ;  else  how  should  it  know  that 


60  CONVERSATIONS   ON 

water  would  run  down  a  slanting  surface? 
But  I  cannot  believe  that  it  is  so  lazy ;  for, 
though  it  does  not  cover  up  the  whole  house 
in  a  paper  shell,  yet  it  does  what  no  other 
wasp  does,  it  covers  its  nest  with  a  complete 
coat  of  shining,  water-proof  varnish,  to  pre- 
vent the  rain  from  soaking  into  the  cells. 
And  putting  on  this  varnish,  I  can  tell 
you,  is  no  trifling  work.  It  forms  a  pretty 
large  part  of  the  labour  of  the  whole  swarm 
belonging  to  the  nest ;  and  sometimes  you 
may  see  some  of  them  at  work  for  hours  at  a 
time,  spreading  it  on  with  their  tongues.  No, 
my  lads,  he  who  wants  an  example  of  lazi- 
ness, will  not  find  it  among  the  wasps. 

"  But  let  us  come  back  to  the  paper.  Hor- 
nets make  paper  for  their  nests  much  in  the 
same  manner  as  the  wasps  do,  only  it  is 
coarser.  There  is,  however,  one  kind  of  wasp 
which  makes  a  sort  of  paper  more  curious 
than  this  which  you  have  found.  It  is  not  a 
wasp  found  in  this  country  at  all.  It  is  the 
Cayenne  wasp,  and  so  smooth,  strong,  and 
white  is  the  outside  of  his  nest  that  it  appears 
like  a  card,  and  he  is  for  that  reason  some- 
times called  the  card-maker  wasp.  He  hangs 
his  nest  on  the  branch  of  a  tree,  and  it  is  so 


NATURAL    HISTORY. 


51 


hard  and  polished  on  the  outside  that  the  rain 
rolls  off  from  it,  as  if  it  were  glass.  A  little  hole 
in  the  lower  end  is  left  for  the  animal  to  pass 
in  and  out ;  and  in  this  picture  of  it,  which  I 


Nest  of  the  Card-maker  Wasp,  with  part  removed  to  show  the 
arrangement  of  the  Cells. 

have,  a  piece  is  left  out  of  the  side  to  show 
how  the  cells  within  are  fixed." 

"  Well,  then,  Uncle  Philip,  we  were  right  in 
thinking  that  wasps  were  the  first  paper- 


52  CONVERSATIONS    ON 

makers;  and  very  glad  we  are  that  we  saw 
this  old  piece  of  a  wasp's  nest.  Who  would 
have  thought  that  so  much  could  be  learned 
by  picking  up  this  old  scrap  of  a  wasp's 
work  !" 

"  Very  good  sense,  boys,  in  that  thought. 
A  wise  man  will  learn  something  from  almost 
any  thing.  Use  your  eyes,  and  think  of  what 
you  see.  Now  in  this  very  trade  of  paper- 
making,  I  think  that  man  would  have  found 
it  out  a  great  deal  sooner  if  he  had  watched 
the  wasps  at  their  work.  They  have  been 
excellent  workmen  at  this  business  from  the  be- 
ginning ;  and  man  has  gone  on  learning  little 
by  little  of  this  very  trade,  as  I  will  tell  you  at 
some  other  time,  when  he  might  have  made  a 
long  step  at  once,  had  he  but  noticed  wasps 
and  hornets.  We  go  on  very  slowly  some- 
times in  learning  to  make  a  trade  as  perfect 
as  it  can  be :  the  poor  animal,  with  its  know- 
ledge such  as  God  gave  it,  is  often  our  supe- 
rior. These  dumb  creatures  cannot  teach  us 
every  thing  ;  there  is  a  point  to  which  they 
can  go,  and  no  further  :  but  as  far  as  they  do 
know,  their  knowledge  is  perfect ;  and  I  make 
no  doubt  that  a  great  many  useful  things  not 
now  known  will  hereafter  be  found  out  by 
watching  dumb  animals." 


NATURAL   HISTORY.  53 


CONVERSATION  V. 

Uncle  Philip  tells  the  Children  a  Story  about 
Tom  Smith ;  and  of  Bees  with  Brushes 
and  Baskets]  and  of  a  Bird  with  a  Chisel, 
and  a  Gnat  with  a  Lancet. 

"  UNCLE  PHILIP,  as  the  day  is  fine,  instead 
of  sitting  here,  will  you  walk  with  us,  this 
morning  ?" 

"  Yes,  boys  ;  let  me  get  my  cane  and  hat, 
and  we  will  take  a  ramble  ;  perhaps  we  may 
see  something,  if  we  will  use  our  eyes. 
Where  do  you  wish  to  go  ?" 

"  Oh,  we  do  not  care  much,  if  you  are  with 
us,  which  way  we  walk  ;  any  course  will  be 
pleasant." 

"  Come  on,  then ;  we  will  cross  the  river, 
and  go  down  on  the  other  side  beyond  the  old 
mill,  where  you  found  the  wasp's  paper.  And 
now,  such  of  you  as  will,  may  keep  a  look-out 
for  curious  things,  while  the  rest  of  us  will 
talk  together. — Boys,  do  any  of  you  know 
Tom  Smith?" 

E2 


54  CONVERSATIONS   ON 

"  Know  him  !  Why,  Uncle  Philip,  every- 
body in  this  part  of  the  country  knows  him ; 
he  is  such  a  shocking  drunkard,  and  swears 
so  horribly,  that  nobody  can  forget  him  ;  and 
what  makes  it  worse,  he  is  an  old  man,  too. 
His  hair  is  almost  as  white  as  yours,  Uncle 
Philip." 

"  Yes  ;  he  is  just  about  my  age.  We  were 
both  born  here,  and  I  have  known  him  ever 
since  we  were  boys ;  and  when  we  played  to- 
gether as  children,  over  this  very  field  which 
we  are  now  crossing,  or  caught  fish  in  the 
river  down  yonder  by  the  rocks,  there  was  not 
a  more  decent,  well-behaved,  handsome  boy 
among  us  than  was  Tom  Smith.  Poor  Tom 
lost  his  father  when  he  was  about  twelve  years 
old,  and  his  mother,  having  no  other  child, 
indulged  him,  until  he  was  sent  to  the  city  to 
go  into  a  store.  But  Tom  then,  boys,  had 
good  principles ;  he  neither  swore  nor  got 
drunk.  In  a  little  time  he  fell  into  bad  com- 
pany, and  they  led  him  astray  by  degrees. 
He  was  so  good-natured  (as  they  call  it),  boys, 
that  he  had  never  the  firmness  to  say  no  to 
the  proposals  of  his  companions.  He  went 
with  them  to  places  of  amusement ;  and  in- 
stead of  spending  his  evenings  in  his  own 


NATURAL   HISTORY.  55 

room,  reading,  he  was  at  the  theatre,  or  danc- 
ing in  some  place,  or  at  a  supper  with  his  young 
companions ;  and  finally  he  began  to  play 
cards  and  billiards  with  them ;  while  the  inside 
of  the  church  was  a  place  which  he  never 
saw.  He  was  cheated  by  his  companions  ; 
and  too  honest  he  was  then  not  to  pay  what 
he  lost  by  gaming:  he  wrote  to  his  poor 
mother,  and  told  her  the  truth,  as  to  his  losses, 
and  she  sent  him  money  to  pay  his  debts,  and 
told  him  to  come  home.  He  did  come  home  ; 
and  even  after  all  that  had  happened,  poor 
Tom  might  have  been  respectable  and  happy ; 
for  his  friends  were  all  willing  to  forget  the 
past,  and  encourage  him  for  the  future.  For 
a  time  he  went  on  pretty  well,  and  married 
an  aifectionate  and  good  young  woman,  and 
his  prospects  were  bright  enough :  but  one 
thing,  boys — one  single  thing,  ruined  his  com- 
fort for  ever.  In  the  city  he  had  learned  to  drink 
strong  liquors. 

"  I  remember,  too,  soon  after  he  came 
home  and  married,  that  a  man  was  hung 
not  far  from  here  for  murdering  his  wife. 
The  man  was  a  drunkard,  though  he  was 
quite  sober  when  he  killed  the  poor  woman  ; 
and  drunkenness  had  hardened  his  heart, 
I  have  no  doubtj  as  it  will  the  heart  of 


56  CONVERSATIONS    ON 

any  man.  Tom  was  talking  to  me  about  that 
man,  and  I  remember  he  said  then  that  when 
a  man  began  to  drink,  he  could  never  say 
where  it  would  end,  nor  what  he  would  do : 
'therefore,'  said  Tom,  c  beware  of  the  first 
drink.'  But  Tom,  though  he  talked  like  a 
Christian  and  a  man  about  it,  did  not  act  like 
one :  for  it  was  not  long  before  he  began  to  fol- 
low his  bad  habit,  and  he  soon  killed  his  poor 
mother ;  for  she  died  of  grief  and  sorrow,  I  think. 
His  excellent  wife  speedily  followed  her  to  the 
grave  ;  and  Tom  Smith  left  the  village,  ^a 
perfect  vagabond,  whom  no  one  cared  for. 
Where  he  went,  or  what  he  did  for  a  long 
time,  no  person  here  knows.  I  went  to  other 
countries,  and  neither  heard  of  nor  saw  Tom 
Smith  until  my  return  home,  when  I  found 
him  wandering  about  here,  a  gray-headed 
swearer  and  drunkard.  He  did  not  know  me, 
and  I  never  should  have  known  him,  had  not 
some  one  told  me  who  he  was.  And  last  night 
I  received  a  letter  from  one  of  my  nephews 
in  the  city,  which  informed  me  that  Tom 
Smith  had  been  tried  in  the  court,  and  found 
guilty  of  stealing,  and  was  sent  to  the  state 
prison  for  ten  years  to  hard  work.  There  I 
suppose  he  will  die  for  he  is  now  old ;  and  it 


NATURAL    HISTORY.  57 

is  awful  to  think  of  what  is  then  to  become 
of  his  soul.  Ah,  my  dear  boys  !  I  could  not 
help  thinking,  when  I  read  my  letter,  of  what 
that  man  said  to  me  years  ago — and  I  have 
told  you  his  story,  hoping  that  you  will  re- 
member his  words,  <  Beware  of  the  first  drink.' 
The  man  who  does  that  will  never  be  a 
drunkard.  And  when  old  Uncle  Philip  is 
laid  in  the  grave,  boys,  which  must  be  before 
many  years,  remember,  as  you  look  upon  the 
place,  that  he  told  you  the  story  of  Tom 
Smith,  and  charged  you  to  '  beware  of  thejirst 
drink.' 

"  But  here  come  some  of  the  boys,  running 
towards  us  ;  I  suppose  they  have  found  some- 
thing." 

"Oh,  Uncle  Philip!  Uncle  Philip!  Do 
come  with  the  boys  this  way.  Under  that 
fence  yonder  there  are  a  great  many  beautiful 
wild  flowers,  and  a  number  of  bees  are  as 
busy  as  they  can  be  about  them  ;  pray  come 
and  see  them." 

"  Well,  I  will ;  but  not  so  fast,  boys ;  you 
forget  that  I  am  an  old  man,  and  cannot  run 
as  you  do. — So,  here  are,  indeed,  a.  great  many 
industrious  little  workmen." 

"  What  are  they  doing,  Uncle  Philip  ?" 


58  CONVERSATIONS    ON 

"These  are  workers  among  the  bees,  and 
they  are  gathering  the  dust  out  of  the  flowers, 
to  work  it  up  into  what  is  commonly  called 
bee-bread.  More  tools  here,  boys  !" 

"  Tools,  Uncle  Philip  !  Ah,  we  like  that : 
pray  let  us  hear  of  them  ;  what  are  they  ?" 

"  Why,  there  is  a  brush  and  a  basket  in  the 
legs  of  these  little  fellows ;  but  they  are  so 
small  that  you  cannot  see  them  without  a 
microscope." 

"  What  is  a  microscope  ?" 

"  It  is  an  instrument,  made  by  fixing  glasses 
in  such  a  way  to  look  through,  that  small 
things  will  seem  to  be  very  large.  Do  you 
not  see  how  some  of  these  little  fellows  are 
rolling  themselves  over  in  the  inside  of  the 
flowers,  so  that  the  yellow  dust  is  sticking  to 
them  ?  Now  their  breasts,  and  legs,  and 
many  other  parts  of  their  bodies  are  covered 
with  very  short  hairs,  which  catch  the  dust. 
The  last  joint  but  one  of  each  leg  is  made 
exactly  like  a  brush,  the  hairs  being  longer 
there  than  on  any  other  part ;  and  with  these 
they  brush  off  the  dust,  and  get  it  into  two 
little  heaps.  The  bags  into  which  they  put  it, 
or  rather  the  baskets,  are  in  the  thighs  of  the 
last  pair  of  legs.  These  are  hollow,  so  as  to 


NATURAL    HISTORY-  59 

form  a  three-sided  basket.  The  bottom  of  it 
is  smooth  and  shining,  and  appears  like  horn, 
and  all  around  the  edges  are  placed  very 
strong,  thick-set  hairs,  like  bristles." 

"  What  are  these  for  ?" 

"  To  keep  things  from  falling  out  of  the 
basket ;  and  these  bristles  are  so  strong  that 
even  if  they  heap  up  more  than  the  basket 
will  hold,  the  bristles  will  keep  it  from  falling. 
Here  is  a  drawing  of  these  legs. 


Structure  of  the  legs  of  the  Bee  for  carrying  propolis  and  pollen, 
magnified. 

Besides  carrying  this  dust,  they  also  carry 

what  is  called  propolis" 

"What  is  propolis,  Uncle  Philip?" 

"  It  is  a  gum  which  is  found  upon  some 


60  CONVERSATIONS    ON 

trees.  This  they  work  up  into  little  ballsr 
and  knead  it  until  it  is  a  little  dry,  so  as  not 
to  stick.  This  takes  the  bee  sometimes  as 
much  as  half  an  hour.  When  the  balls  are 
ready,  she  passes  them  backwards  with  her 
feet  to  the  basket,  puts  them  in,  and  gives 
them  a  pat  or  two  to  make  them  lie  close  j 
and  when  she  adds  more,  she  pats  it  still 
harder,  and  when  the  basket  is  full,  away  she 
goes  to  the  hive.  But  there  is  another  curi- 
ous instrument  about  the  bee.  I  mean  its 
sting :  this  is  like  the  head  of  a  barbed  or 
bearded  arrow.  There  is  a  sheath  for  it  when 
the  bee  does  not  wish  to  use  it ;  and  here  is  a 
picture  of  it. 


a,  The  sting  of  a  Bee,  magnified  to  show  the  barbed  darts";  &,  the  last 
ring  of  the  abdomen  of  a  Bee  opened,  showing  the  sting  in  its  sheath. 

But  let  us  now  continue  our  walk." 

"  Well,  Uncle  Philip,  it  is  really  very  pleas- 
ant to  walk  with  you  :  it  seems  as  if  you  met 
nothing  which  could  not  teach  us  things 
worth  knowing." 


NATURAL   HISTORY.  61 

"  Why,  my  dear  boys,  there  are,  as  I  told 
you  once  before,  a  great  many  things  which  I 
do  not  know ;  and  what  I  do  know  I  am  very 
willing  to  tell  you.  But  you  may  learn  just 
as  I  did, — by  reading,  by  taking  notice  of 
things  around  you,  and  by  thinking  for  your- 
selves. And  I  do  not  know  any  thing  more 
pleasant  to  notice  than  the  works  of  God.  I 
see  his  wisdom  and  his  goodness  in  every 
thing  which  he  has  made.  I  see  them  in  the 
insects,  and  the  birds,  and  the  larger  animals  ; 
I  see  them  in  the  grass,  and  the  flowers,  and 
the  trees  ;  and  I  see  them  in  the  rocks  and 
the  stones  upon  the  ground.  All  these  things 
are  well  worth  our  attention,  boys ;  the  study  of 
all  these  things  around  us  is  called  the  study 
of  <  Natural  History ;'  and  I  think  it  is  apt  to 
make  him  who  loves  it  a  better  man  ;  at  any 
rate,  I  believe  that  there  have  been  very  few 
who  have  been  fond  of  it,  who  have  not  been 
amiable  and  benevolent  men.  But,  hark  !  Do 
you  hear  that  noise  ?" 

"  Yes,  Uncle  Philip  ;  it  is  the  sound  of  men 
chopping  wood  in  that  clump  of  trees." 

"  No,  boys  ;  it  is  like  the  sound  of  a  wood- 
cutter ;  and  it  is  a  wood-cutter,  but  he  does 
not  use  one  of  our  hatchets." 

F 


62  CONVERSATIONS   ON 

"  What  is  it  that  he  uses,  then  T 
"  He  uses  the  tool  which  God  gave  him. 
It  is  a  bird,  boys,  which  you  hear :  it  is  the 
woodpecker.     See,  there  it  is  on  yonder  tree, 
and  look,  at  the  foot  of  it,  there  is  something 
like  a  bushel  of   the   bird's    chips    or  dust. 
Its   bill  is  a  complete  chisel ;   it  is  straight, 
hard,  and  sharp,  with   edges  too  upon   the 
sides.     It  is  not  a  very  broad  chisel,  but  still  it 
is  one,  and  used  as  we  use  ours.     But  the 
chisel  is  not  the  only  instrument  of   that 
workman.     Its    tongue  is  worth  examining. 
It  bores  a  hole  into  a  tree  that  is  dead  or  de- 
caying, to  look  for  insects  whose  nests  are  in 
the  tree ;  and  when  it  reaches  the  cell  where 
the  young  insect  is,  it  uses  its  tongue  to  get 
it  out,  and  it  suits  exactly  for  the  business. 
In  the  first  place,  it  is  so  long  that  the  bird 
can  shoot  it  out  three  or  four  inches  longer 
than  the  bill  is  ;  in  the  next  place  the  end  of 
it  is  tipped  with  a  stiif,  sharp,  long  thorn  ; 
and  in  the  last  place,  that  thorn   has  little 
teeth  on  both  sides  of  it,  like  that  which  you 
see  on  the  point  of  a  fish-hook :  these  teeth 
are  to  keep  the  insect  from  falling  off  when 
it   puts  its  tongue  in  the  hole  and  sticks  its 
sharp  point  into  it  to  draw  it  out  for  food.     So 


NATURAL    HISTORY.  63 

that  besides  the  chisel,  the  woodpecker  has  a 
spear,  or  lance,  or  arrow,  barbed  (as  it  is 
called)  or  bearded  at  the  point. 

"  But  we  are  some  distance,  boys,  beyond 
the  old  mill :  suppose  we  now  turn  back  to- 
wards home  ;  I  find  the  gnats  rather  trouble- 
some." 

"  So  do  we,  Uncle  Philip  ;  they  have  been 
Citing  us  for  some  time :  it  would  be  well  if 
there  were  no  such  tormenting  things  in  the 
world." 

"  I  am  not  sure  of  that,  boys.  We  may  not 
always  be  able  to  find  out  the  exact  use  of 
some  of  these  little  animals ;  but  that  only 
shows  that  we  are  ignorant,  not  that  they  are 
of  no  use.  God  would  never  have  made  them 
if  he  had  not  some  wise  purpose  in  doing  so : 
I  do  not  believe  he  ever  wastes  his  power  in 
making  useless  things.  But  what  will  you 
say  about  gnats,  when  I  tell  you  that  they  have 
a  tool  to  work  with,  and  a  very  perfect  one, 
too  ?" 

"Why,  we  will  almost  forgive  them  for 
biting  us." 

"  Biting  you  !  They  have  not  been  biting 
with  teeth  :  they  are  doctors,  boys  ;  they  have 
only  been  bleeding  you,  and  cupping  you." 


64  CONVERSATIONS    ON 

"And  what  have  they  been  bleeding  us 
with  ?" 

"  Why,  with  a  lancet,  to  be  sure  ;  what 
should  a  doctor  use  but  a  lancet  to  let  blood  ?" 

"  And  has  the  gnat  really  a  lancet?" 

"  Yes,  it  has  :  this  instrument  forms  a  part 
of  what  you  may  call  the  tongue  of  the  gnat : 
it  is  made  up  of  five  pieces,  which  are  shut  up 
in  a  case,  split  from  one  end  to  the  other ; 
these  give  steadiness  to  the  lancet  when  it  is 
used.  But  the  reason  of  the  pain  is  not  so 
much  the  wound  of  the  lancet,  as  it  is  the 
fluid  or  poisonous  juice  which  the  gnat  puts 
into  the  wound  to  make  the  blood  thin  enough 
for  the  insect  to  suck  it  up  through  a  tube  or 
case,  which  makes  part  of  its  mouth.  Here 
is  a  drawing  of  part  of  a  gnat's  mouth. 


NATURAL   HISTORY.  65 

And  here  is  a  picture  of  the  lancet  or  knife 
of  a  horse-fly. 


"  We  have  now  reached  the  bridge, — and 
here  we  must  part ;  your  homes  are  in  one 
direction,  and  mine  is  in  the  opposite.  I  hope, 
however,  that  you  have  learned  something  in 
our  morning's  walk." 

"  We  have,  Uncle  Philip,  and  we  thank  you 
much,  and  bid  you,  good  day." 

"  Good  day,  boys." 


66  CONVERSATIONS   ON 


CONVERSATION  VI. 

Uncle  Philip  tells  the  Children  about  Ani- 
mals that  can  do  Mason's  Work. 

"  UNCLE  PHILIP,  we  saw  a  very  strange 
thing  just  now ;  as  we  were  coming,  we  saw  a 
great  many  bees  flying  by  us,  and  each  one 
was  carrying  a  little  stone." 

"  That  was  strange,  indeed.  Did  you  find 
out  any  thing  about  them  ?" 

"  We  asked  a  man  who  was  near  what  they 
did  it  for,  and  he  said  that  they  carried  the 
stones  to  prevent  the  wind,  which  is  blowing 
pretty  fresh,  from  tossing  them  about  too 
much." 

"  That  is  a  very  silly  story,  boys,  though  it 
is  a  very  old  one  :  for  I  have  seen  them  carry- 
ing what  you  call  stones  when  it  was  quite 
calm,  and  there  was  no  wind  to  blow  them 
away.  The  man  was  very  ignorant,  or  he 
would  have  told  you  another  story,  which 
would  have  been  both  strange  and  true." 


NATURAE    HISTORY.  67 

"  Will  you  have  the  goodness,  Uncle  Philip, 
to  tell  us  what  it  meant  ?" 

"  Very  willingly,  boys.  What  you  saw  I 
presume  were  bees.  You  remember  that  I 
told  you  there  were  several  kinds  of  bees  ; 
and  this  one  is  called  the  mason-bee.  This 
kind  builds  his  nest  of  mortar,  and  was  there- 
fore called  the  mason-bee  by  Mr.  Reaumur 
first,  I  believe." 

"Where  does  it  get  the  mortar,  Uncle 
Philip  ?" 

"  It  makes  it,  boys.  This  kind  of  bee  may 
be  seen  flying  about,  picking  up  sand,  grain 
by  grain,  putting  it  into  a  heap,  gluing  them 
together  with  a  sort  of  gum  out  of  her  own 
mouth,  and  building  with  them  a  foundation 
for  her  house.  This  little  workman  commonly 
builds  against  the  side  of  a  wall  between  two 
bricks  where  the  mortar  has  fallen  out ;  and 
if  you  should  see  one  of  the  nests,  it  appears 
exactly  like  a  lump  of  dry  mud  which  has 
been  thrown  wet  upon  the  wall  out  of  a  cart- 
rut  :  but  when  you  examine  it  closely,  you 
may  see  a  great  many  small  stones  in  it,  more 
than  is  common  in  mud :  a  hundred  people, 
though,  might  pass  by  it,  and  never  think  it 
was  any  thing  more  than  a  lump  of  dirt,  which 


68  CONVERSATIONS    ON 

had  been  thrown  upon  the  wall  when  it  was 
wet,  and  had  afterward  dried  there.  Here  is 
a  picture  of  one  of  these  nests. 


Exterior  wall  of  Mason-bee's  Nest. 

You  see  there  is  a  small  hole  in  it ;  this  leads 
to  a  cell  inside  about  an  inch  deep,  and  shaped 
exactly  like  a  lady's  thimble ;  the  inside  of 
this  cell  is  polished  smooth,  and  appears  like 
a  wall  of  plaster,  except  that  it  has  little  yel- 
low stains  upon  it.  Here  is  the  bee  that 
makes  it. 


Mason-bee.-r-Natural  size. 


making  this  mortar  to  build  with,  the  bee 


NATURAL    HISTORY.  69 

will  sometimes  add  earth  that  is  soft  to  its 
grains  of  sand,  and  when  the  lump  is  about 
the  size  of  a  small  shot,  it  takes  it  up  and  flies 
away  with  it,  to  work  it  into  the  wall." 

"  Does  it  always  use  sand,  Uncle  Philip  ?" 

"  Not  always  :  sometimes  it  takes  wet  clay, 
and  will  dig  into  a  bank  of  clay  baked  hard 
by  the  sun  on  the  outside,  so  as  to  get  that 
which  is  wet. 

"  Mr.  Rennie,  a  gentleman  in  England  who 
is  very  fond  of  watching  insects,  and  has  found 
out  a  great  many  curious  things  about  them, 
has  given  an  account  of  some  of  these  bees 
which  he  noticed  at  work.  Every  one  was 
carrying  out  of  a  hole  in  the  clay-bank  a  small 
lump  of  clay ;  and  on  catching  one  of  them,  he 
found  that  this  lump  was  wetter  than  the  clay 
in  the  hole,  so  that  the  bee  had  moistened  it, 
and  worked  it  together,  to  make  it  stick  like 
good  mortar.  These  lumps  too  were  larger 
than  a  shot ;  they  were  as  large  as  a  garden- 
pea." 

"  How  long  did  it  take  them  to  work  up  the 
lump?" 

"About  half  a  minute,  Mr.  Rennie  says. 
He  watched  one  of  these  little  creatures,  and 
found  that  she  was  building  on  the  inside 


70  CONVERSATIONS   ON 

wall  of  a  coal-house,  where  the  bricks  and 
mortar  were  left  rough :  she  was  at  work  be- 
tween two  of  the  bricks  where  the  mortar 
had  fallen  out,  or  where  the  bee  had  taken  it 
out.  And  the  conduct  of  the  bee  at  her  house 
was  very  different  from  what  it  was  at  the 
clay-bank.  She  was  not  frightened,  but  went 
on  working  when  any  one  came  near  the 
clay-bank  ;  but  at  her  house  she  seemed  afraid 
that  it  should  be  found  out  where  it  was. 
She  would  alight  first  on  the  roof  outside,  as 
if  she  merely  wished  to  rest  herself;  and 
when  she  flew  into  the  coal-house  she  would 
not  go  directly  to  her  nest,  but  would  set- 
tle on  a  shelf,  and  sometimes  pretend  to  be 
examining  a  great  many  places  in  the  wall 
between  different  bricks  ;  and  at  last,  when 
she  supposed  there  was  no  risk,  or  when  there 
was  nothing  to  alarm  her,  she  would  fly  to 
her  nest,  and  go  to  work  with  all  her  might 
in  fixing  her  piece  of  clay  to  the  wall." 

"  Why  did  she  wish  her  house  not  to  be 
found  out,  Uncle  Philip  ?" 

"  Mr.  Rennie  supposed  it  was  her  instinct : 
she  had  seen  probably  some  of  the  insects 
which  would  destroy  her  young,  watching  her 
to  see  where  she  was  building ;  and  sometimes 


NATURAL    HISTORY.  71 

after  flying  nearly  to  her  nest  with  a  load,  she 
would  turn  back  and  fly  towards  the  clay- 
bank,  or  take  a  large  sweep  off  in  another 
direction,  and  so  come  to  her  house. 

"  Besides  the  mason-bee,  boys,  there  is  the 
mason-wasp,  which  I  have  heard  some  per- 
sons call  the  dirt-dauber :  it  is  very  common, 
especially  in  the  southern  part  of  the  United 
States.  It  works  very  much  like  the  mason- 
bee,  only  it  is  apt  to  fix  its  nest  under  the 
eaves  of  old  houses,  which  I  think  the  mason- 
bee  never  does. 

"  There  is  also  another  kind  of  mason- wasp 
which  will  actually  break  a  hard  brick.  Mr. 
Rennie  says  that  he  saw  one  at  work  on  a 
brick  of  a  hard  yellow  kind.  Whether  the 
wasp  found  a  hole  in  the  brick  to  begin  with, 
he  did  not  know ;  but  if  he  did  he  was  hard 
at  work  making  it  larger  :  he  would  break 
off  a  piece  as  large  as  a  mustard-seed  at  a 
time.  Here  is  a  drawing  of  that  kind  of 
wasp;  and  the  insect  is  no  larger  than  the 
picture. 


Mason- wasp.— Natural  size 


72  CONVERSATIONS    ON 

It  seems  wonderful  that  so  small  an  insect 
should  have  so  much  strength.  Here  is  a 
picture  of  its  jaws,  seen  through  a  microscope, 
so  as  to  appear  a  great  deal  larger  than  they 
really  are. 


Jaws  of  Mason- wasp.— Greatly  magnified. 

"  I  do  not  know,  boys,  that  the  masons  we 
have  been  talking  of,  show  us  any  tools  like 
those  with  which  men  who  are  masons  work ; 
but  they  show  us,  at  any  rate,  how  to  make 
mortar  by  kneading  or  working  it  together  ; 
and  they  certainly  show  us  that  we  were  not 
the  first  who  built  walls.  But  there  is  an- 
other kind  of  mason  who  works  in  stone. 
He  picks  out  the  stones  which  are  of  proper 
size,  and  he  fastens  them  together  with  mor- 
tar really  as  men  do." 

"  Pray  tell  us  of  him,  Uncle  Philip." 

"  I  will.     The  insect  I  mean  is  the  caddis- 


NATURAL    HISTORY.  73 

worm,  which  is  to  be  found  sometimes  in 
ponds,  and  very  often  in  springs  of  fresh 
water.  There  are  several  sorts  of  them,  but 
the  one  I  am  thinking  of  now,  builds  a  stone 
house  to  live  in.  These  worms  are  in  the 
habit  of  making  a  little  tube,  sometimes  of 
sand,  or  shell,  or  wood,  or  leaves,  or  stones, 
to  live  in  ;  and  their  skill  consists  in  joining 
these  perfectly,  and  making  them  stick  to- 
gether. But  we  are  talking  now  of  the  caddis- 
worm  that  uses  stone.  What  the  worm  has 
to  do  is  to  make  a  tube  out  of  small  stones, 
that  shall  have  a  hollow  about  as  large  as  a 
wheat  straw,  and  be  perfectly  smooth  inside. 
This  is  a  pretty  hard  task — at  least  it  would 
be  very  hard  to  us.  When  the  stone-mason 
wishes  a  stone  of  a  particular  size  or  shape, 
and  cannot  find  it,  he  takes  his  hammer  and 
breaks  one  until  it  will  suit ;  but  the  caddis- 
worm  has  no  hammer,  and  must  take  the 
stones  just  as  it  finds  them.  The  little  in- 
sect then  has  to  pick  out  a  great  many  stones 
before  he  gets  the  right  one,  because  they 
have  so  many  little  rough  points  about  them 
that  it  is  very  difficult  to  get  those  which  will 
make  the  tube  perfectly  smooth  inside.  Re- 
member, too,  that  the  bottom  or  lower  side  of 

G 


74  CONVERSATIONS    ON 

this  stone  case  has  to  be  pretty  nearly  smooth, 
so  that  the  worm  can  drag  it  along  on  the  bot- 
tom of  the  spring  or  pond  (for  it  never  comes 
out  of  it),  and  you  will  see  that  the  picking  out 
of  the  stones  alone  is  no  trifle.  But  besides 
this,  it  has  to  fasten  them  together  with  mortar." 

"  And  can  the  worm  really  do  this,  Uncle 
Philip  ?  Will  not  the  water  wash  the  mortar 
all  away  T 

"  It  certainly  would  if  it  were  like  common 
mortar.  It  was  a  long  time  that  men  lived 
before  they  found  out  a  mortar  that  would  re- 
main, and  grow  hard  under  water.  When 
they  want  to  build  a  wall  that  is  to  be  under 
the  water,  they  use  a  cement  which  is  called 
pozzolana;  it  is  made  of  lava  out  of  a  vol- 
cano, and  is  water-proof.  Our  caddis-worm 
has  a  cement  too,  which  is  better  than  pozzo- 
lana, and  though  it  has  been  tried,  it  cannot 
be  melted  or  dissolved  in  water.  Here  is  a 
drawing  of  the  stone  nest  of  a  caddis-worm." 


Stone  Nest  of  Caddis- worm. 


"Uncle  Philip,  you  said  that  sometimes 
these  worms  built  their  nests  of  other  things 


NATURAL    HISTORY. 


75 


besides  stones  ;  let  us  hear  something  of  them, 
if  you  please." 

"Very  willingly,    boys.     Some    build    of 
shells  :  here  are  pictures  of  their  nests. 


Shell  Nests  of  Caddis-worms. 


Some  build  of  leaves,  and  others  of  pieces  of 
reed  or  light  bark. 


Reed  Nest  of  Caddis- worm. 

And  a  curious  thing  about  those  which  build 
of  light  pieces  of  bark  or  reed  is  this,  that  they 
will  make  the  top-piece  come  over  so  as  to 
hide  their  heads,  and  prevent  you  from  seeing 
them.  Some  build  of  sand  ;  and  then  as  the 
house  would  be  so  light  that  the  water  run- 


76  CONVERSATIONS    ON 

ning  from  the  spring  might  wash  it  down  and 
carry  it  away,  the  wonderful  little  creature 
takes  care  to  anchor  it  by  fastening  a  pretty 
Jarge  stone  to  it  when  it  has  nearly  finished  it. 


Sand  Nest,  balanced  with  a  Stone. 

And  as  the  worm  anchors  it  when  it  is  too 
light,  so  it  lightens  it  when  it  is  too  heavy, 
by  fixing  a  bit  of  light  wood  or  hollow  straw 
to  it  to  buoy  it  up." 


Nest  of  Caddis-worm,  balanced  with  Straws. 

"  Well,  this  is  truly  a  wonderful  insect, 
Uncle  Philip." 

"  Truly  so  indeed,  boys.  In  all  these  cases 
it  uses  its  water-proof  cement,  and  if  you  break 
its  house  to  pieces,  and  will  patiently  watch, 
you  may  see  it  build  another.  The  insect 
always  lives  with  its  head  out  of  doors,  and 
its  body  inside  ;  so  that  its  head  is  firm  and 
hard,  while  its  body  is  soft." 

"  Uncle  Philip,"  said  one  of  the  larger  boys, 
"there  is  one  thing  I  have  been  thinking 


NATURAL    HISTORY.  77 

about,  as  you  have  been  talking  :  these  little 
masons  have  no  trowel,  but  I  believe  I  know 
of  one  animal  that  uses  something  like  that 
tool." 

"Ah!     What  animal  is  it?" 

"  Why,  I  was  reading  the  other  day  some- 
thing  about  the  beavers  building  their  dams 
and  their  houses,  and  the  book  said  that  they 
built  their  houses  of  logs  first,  and  then  plas- 
tered them  with  mud,  and  that  they  jised  their 
tails  for  trowels." 

"  I  am  very  glad  to  find  that  you  remember 
what  you  read;  but  I  am  sorry  that  your  book 
did  not  tell  you  the  truth.  There  have  been 
very  strange  stories  told  about  the  beaver ; 
and  these  stories  have  been  taken  from  one 
book  and  printed  in  another,  so  that  an  un- 
true account  has  gone  down  for  a  great  many 
years.  The  beaver  is  very  ingenious,  but  is 
not  quite  so  much  of  a  mason  as  you  sup- 
pose." 

"  Well,  Uncle  Philip,  will  you  tell  us  the 
truth  about  it  ?" 

"  Yes,  boys.  Twill,  so  far  as  I  know  itteyself. 
I  have  seen  these  animals,  for  they  were  once  a 
great  deal  more  common  in  our  country  than 
they  are  now  ;  and  many  of  the  stories  told 


78  CONVERSATIONS    ON 

of  them  are  not  true.  But  before  I  begin,  let 
me  tell  you  of  one  book  which  I  think  does 
tell  the  plain  truth  about  them  ;  and  the  truth 
is  curious  enough." 

"  What  book  is  it,  Uncle  Philip  ?" 
"  It  is  a  book  written  on  American  Natural 
History,  by  Doctor  John  Godman.  I  knew 
him,  boys,  and  a  most  excellent  man  he  was. 
He  is  now  dead — and  he  died  a  Christian. 
The  book  he  wrote  you  will  find  worth  read- 
ing, when  you  get  old  enough  to  understand 
it.  But  now  for  the  beaver. 

"  His  tail  is  very  broad  and  flat  at  the  end, 
and  might  be  used  very  well  for  a  trowel ;  but 
when  he  builds  his  house  he  does  not  cut  down 
trees,  and  place  them  first,  and  then  fill  up  the 
cracks  with  mud-mortar ;  but  all  the  sticks 
and  mud  (and  stones  too  when  the  beaver  can 
get  them),  are  first  mixed  up  together,  and  the 
beaver  builds  his  house  with  this  from  the 
very  foundation.  As  soon  as  he  has  placed  a 
lump  of  this  stuff  upon  the  wall,  he  turns 
round  and  gives  it  a  blow  with  his  flat  tail ; 
and  that,  boys,  is  all  he  does  with  his  tail  for 
a  trowel.  Sometimes  he  slaps  his  tail  upon 
the  water  when  he  is  swimming ;  and  some 
persons  have  supposed  that  this  was  done  by 


NATURAL    HISTORY.  79 

the  king-,  or  ruler,  to  call  his  workmen.  It 
may  be  so,  but  I  do  not  believe  it,  because  they 
almost  always  dive  as  soon  as  they  have 
slapped  the  water  ;  and  I  think  it  is  probably 
a  part  of  their  motion  in  diving.  In  the 
autumn  they  cover  the  outside  of  their  houses 
with  mud,  and  they  walk  over  it  as  they  are 
at  work,  and  their  tails  drag  along  upon 
it ;  and  this  I  expect  made  persons  first  sup- 
pose that  they  were  plastering  it,  with  the 
tail  for  a  trowel.  When  they  are  caught  and 
kept,  boys,  they  still  keep  up  this  fashion  of 
slapping  with  the  tail ;  so  that  I  rather  think 
it  is  part  of  the  nature  of  the  animal. 

"  At  another  time,  perhaps,  [  will  tell  you 
more  about  the  beaver  ;  but  it  is  now  late, 
and  I  must  bid  you  good  morning." 

«  Good  day,  Uncle  Philip." 


CONVERSATIONS    ON 


CONYERSATION  VII. 

Uncle  Philip  talks  to  the  Children  about  Ani- 
mals that  throw  Dirt  with  a  Spade  ;  and 
about  an  Animal  with  a  Hook  ;  and  about 
one  that  is  a  Wire-drawer. 

"  BOYS,  I  have  some  men  at  work  digging 
a  small  ditch  for  me,  and  I  wish  to  see  them  ; 
will  you  go  with  me  ?" 

"  Oh,  yes— very  gladly,  Uncle  Philip  ;  for 
you  will  be  sure  to  tell  us  of  something  cu- 
rious before  we  come  home." 

"  Come  on,  then :  yonder  are  the  men  at 
work;  they  have  been  very  industrious,  I 
see." 

"  But,  Uncle  Philip,  look  !  There  is  one  of 
the  men  putting  a  bottle  to  his  mouth.  Is 
that  right  V 

"  Yes,  boys,  right  enough ;  for  the  bottle 
has  nothing  but  molasses  and  water  in  it ; 
and  the  man  is  thirsty,  I  suppose.  I  would 
not  employ  him  if  he  brought  a  bottle  of 
spirits  out  with  him,  for  two  reasons.  In  the 


NATURAL    HISTORY.  81 

first  place,  I  think  that  I  ought  not  to  en- 
courage a  man  who  gets  drunk,  by  employing 
him  ;  for  I  would  rather  give  my  money  to 
a  sober  man  who  will  not  spend  it  for  rum  and 
brandy,  but  will  take  care  of  his  family :  and, 
in  the  second  place,  a  drunkard  would  not 
work  faithfully  without  being  watched  all  the 
time.  I  never  knew  a  drunkard  who  was 
really  and  honestly  an  industrious  man." 

"  See,  Uncle  Philip,  how  strong  that  man 
is ;  what  a  large  spadeful  of  dirt  he  throws 
out!" 

"  Yes,  I  see,  boys  :  do  you  think  that  men 
had  the  first  spades  in  the  world  ?" 

"  Ah  !  now  you  are  going  to  tell  us  some- 
thing about  tools  among  animals :  that  is 
good ;  we  like  to  hear  of  that.  What  animal 
is  it  that  has  a  spade  ?" 

"  Oh,  a  very  common  animal  indeed  in 
some  parts  of  our  country.  The  country 
people  call  it  a  ivoodchuk,  and  sometimes  a 
ground-hog  :  its  right  name  is  the  marmot ; 
and  as  there  are  several  sorts,  ours  is  called 
the  Maryland  marmot,  to  distinguish  it ;  but 
it  is  in  New- York,  Connecticut,  New- Jersey, 
Pennsylvania,  Virginia,  and  some  of  the  other 
states,  as  well  as  in  Maryland.  This  is  rather 


82  CONVERSATIONS    ON 

a  mischievous  animal,  and  does  harm  to  the 
clover-fields  ;  but  it  is  in  making  his  house 
that  he  uses  his  spade." 

"  Then  he  digs  his  house  in  the  ground, 
Uncle  Philip?" 

"Yes;  he  burrows,  or  digs  his  nest  in 
banks  of  earth,  or  on  the  sides  of  hills  ;  and 
he  has  sense  enough  to  make  the  passage  to 
the  inside  upwards,  instead  of  downwards,  so 
that  water  cannot  run  in.  In  digging  soft 
earth  he  uses  his  fore-paws  to  loosen  the  dirt, 
for  his  fore-legs  are  very  strong ;  and  if  the 
ground  is  hard  he  will  use  his  teeth  too.  As 
he  gets  farther  in,  he  throws  the  dirt  with  his 
fore-paws  under  his  belly,  and  when  he  has  a 
heap  gathered,  he  balances  himself  on  his 
fore-feet,  and  begins  to  throw  it  out  with  his 
spades." 

"  What  are  his  spades,  Uncle  Philip  ?" 

"His  hinder  feet,  boys,  which  are  very 
broad,  and  just  fit  to  take  up  the  dirt  as  a 
spade  does,  and  to  throw  it  from  him :  there 
is  a  skin  which  grows  between  the  toes  of  his 
hinder  feet,  so  that  he  can  spread  them  out 
when  he  chooses,  like  a  duck's  foot." 

"  But,  Uncle  Philip,  perhaps  they  are  made 
so  for  the  sake  of  swimming;  the  duck's  are." 


NATUR'AL   HISTORY.  83 

"  That  is  a  sensible  thought,  boys.  Always 
think  for  yourselves ;  and  when  you  make  a 
mistake,  try  again:  everybody  is  mistaken 
sometimes.  Let  it  teach  you  to  be  modest 
and  humble ;  but  do  not  be  afraid  to  think 
again.  A  person  who  is  always  thinking 
cannot  always  think  wrong.  Now  you  sup- 
pose the  marmot's  feet  may  be  made  like  a 
duck's  for  swimming :  let  me  tell  you  some- 
thing else,  and  we  shall  see  what  you  will 
think  then.  The  marmot  hates  a  rain  as 
much  as  you  would  if  you  had  no  umbrella ; 
he  very  seldom  even  drinks  water,  and  then 
only  a  little ;  and  you  cannot  drive  him  into 
a  stream  or  pond ;  he  is  afraid  of  it.  What 
do  you  think  now  ?" 

"  Why,  Uncle  Philip,  we  think  that  he  is 
no  swimmer." 

"Very  true,  boys:  so  his  feet,  then,  you 
now  think,  were  made  for  spades,  and  not  for 
paddles  ?" 

"  We  do.  Can  you  tell  us  any  thing  more 
about  this  animal,  Uncle  Philip  ?" 

"Oh  yes.  The  burrows  or  holes  of  the 
marmot  run  a  great  distance  under  ground, 
and  end  in  several  chambers  or  rooms,  ac- 
cording to  the  number  that  is  to  live  in  them. 


84  CONVERSATIONS   ON 

They  make  beds  in  them  of  dry  leaves,  or 
grass,  or  any  thing  soft  and  dry  which  they 
can  find.  They  cram  their  mouths  full  of  it 
to  carry,  when  they  are  making  their  nests. 
As  soon  as  cold  weather  begins,  the  animal 
goes  into  his  house,  and  stops  up  the  hole  on 
the  inside  ;  and  there  he  stays  till  the  warm 
weather  has  come  again. 

"  He  is  quite  a  thief  at  times.  I  saw  one 
once  which  a  gentleman  had  tamed,  and  he 
played  about  the  yard ;  but  every  thing  that 
he  could  get  hold  of  which  was  fit  to  make 
his  bed  of,  he  was  sure  to  steal,  and  carry 
into  his  hole  under  ground.  When  clothes 
were  hung  out  to  dry  he  would  take  them  off 
the  line,  and  as  soon  as  any  were  missed  the 
washerwoman  knew  very  well  where  they 
were.  She  kept  a  long  stick  with  a  hook  at 
the  end  of  it,  and  with  this  she  drew  them  out 
of  the  burrow.  He  soon  found  out  what  it 
meant,  and  whenever  she  used  the  stick,  it 
was  necessary  first  to  tie  him  up  ;  for  he  did 
not  choose  to  have  his  bed  spoiled,  and  would 
run  to  the  hole  and  try  to  get  in,  and  prevent 
the  clothes  from  being  drawn  out.  One  day 
he  stole  eight  pairs  of  stockings,  a  towel,  and 
a  little  girl's  frock ;  and  he  carried  them  into 


'$  NATURAL -HISTORY.  85 

his  burrow  as  far  as  six  feet  from  the  en- 
trance. 

"  But,  boys,  as  we  have  begun  this  morning 
upon  the  old  subject  of  tools  among  animals, 
I  will  tell  you  of  something  which,  though  not 
exactly  a  tool,  is  a  very  useful  instrument, 
and  is  found  belonging  to  a  very  common 
creature.  Did  you  ever  take  notice  of  a 
bat?" 

"  Oh  yes,  Uncle  Philip,  often,  as  they  were 
flying  about  in  a  room  at  night,  but  not 
nearer." 

"  Then  you  never  saw  what  I  mean,  I  ex- 
pect. Our  common  bat,  boys,  has  two  very 
excellent  hooks ;  one  on  each  of  what  you 
call  its  wings  :  I  say  what  you  call  its  wings, 
because  the  bat  is  not  really  a  bird,  but  a 
quadruped ;  that  is,  an  animal  with  four  feet : 
and  when  it  is  on  the  ground,  any  one  may 
see  that  it  is  a  four-footed'animal.  If  a  mon- 
key's paw  should  be  flattened  out  very  much, 
it  would  be  something  like  a  bat's  paw  or 
hand.  The  long  finger-bones  are  just  tike 
the  sticks  of  an  umbrella  ;  there  is  a  thin  skin 
between  them,  and  they  stretch  it  out,  so  that 
the  air  underneath  will  keep  them  up.  When 
they  are  on  the  ground  all  this  is  folded  up. 

H 


86  CONVERSATIONS    ON 

Their  hinder  feet  have  five  toes,  all  small,  and 
ending  in  sharp  claws.  On  the  fore-feet  there 
is  but  one  finger  which  the  bat  can  use  much, 
because  the  others  are  like  umbrella-sticks,  as 
I  told  you  ;  and  the  end  of  that  one  is  a  hook. 
Here  is  a  picture,  in  which  you  can  see  it 
plainly. 


When  the  bat  is  on  the  ground,  it  is  hard 
work  for  it  to  get  along.  At  first  it  will  reach 
forward  a  little  to  one  side  the  hooked  end  of 
its  fore-leg,  and  stick  it  in  the  ground  ;  then 
it  draws  its  -  hind-legs  under  its  belly,  and 
raising  itself  up,  just  tumbles  forward  its  whole 
body.  At  the  next  step  it  stretches  out  the 
other  fore-leg,  and  hooks  it,  as  it  did  before, 
and  drawing  itself  up,  tumbles  forward  again. 
The  bat  does  not  like  a  level  place,  because  it 
cannot  raise  itself  in  the  air  from  it.  When 
they  rest,  they  hang  by  the  hooks  ;  and  here 


1  NATURAL    HISTORY.  87 

is  a  drawing  of  one,  resting.  In  the  other 
picture  which  I  showed  you  just  now  the 
bat  was  flying." 


"Uncle  Philip,  we  did  not  know  before  that 
bats  were  such  curious  things ;  we  always 
thought  that  they  were  birds ;  but  if  these 
pictures  are  like  them,  these  hooks  are  as  good 
as  fish-hooks." 

"The  pictures,  boys,  are  very  much  like 
the  animal,  and  the  hooks  are  just  as  plain 
as  they  seem  to  be  in  the  drawings.  But 
how  often  do  you  suppose  that  you  have  seen 
a  bat?" 


88  CONVERSATIONS    ON 

"Oh,  many  hundreds  of  times;  for  they 
are  very  common." 

"  True,  boys  ;  and  yet  you  never  knew  be- 
fore that  they  had  hooks  about  them.  Sup- 
pose that  everybody  had  done  as  you  have, 
just  passed  by  the  bats,  without  taking  notice 
of  them ;  I  could  not  have  told  you  then 
what  strange  creatures  they  are,  for  no  person 
would  have  known  any  thing  about  them. 
You  see,  then,  that  men  may  have  eyes,  and 
yet  not  see  things  ;  because  they  will  not  look 
for  them.  Use  your  eyes,  boys  ;  God  made 
them  to  be  used." 

"  But,  Uncle  Philip,  bats  are  such  ugly 
things !  and  they  can  bite,  too.  We  are  afraid 
of  them." 

"Ugly,  boys!  And  what  of  that?  Will 
you  look  at  nothing  but  what  is  handsome  ? 
If  the  bat  could  think  and  speak,  1  expect  he 
would  call  you  very  ugly.  But  it  is  foolish, 
boys,  to  be  afraid  of  these  smaller  animals. 
There  are  many  creatures  which  might  hurt 
yon,  and  I  would  advise  you  to  keep  out  of 
their  way :  but  it  is  silly  to  be  afraid  of  every 
poor  little  insect  or  animal  which  you  see.  I 
have  seen  a  large  boy  cry  when  he  saw  a 
poor  little  caterpillar  or  bug  near  him.  Now 


* 

NATURAL   HISTORY.  89 

there  are  very  few  insects,  indeed,  which  can 
or  will  hurt  you  ;  and  a  great  many  of  them 
you  may  watch  without  touching  them  at  all. 
And  I  think  that  he  is  a  wicked  and  cruel  boy 
who  kills  every  poor  bug  that  he  sees,  merely 
because  he  is  stronger  than  the  bug.  It  would 
be  a  great  deal  kinder  and  wiser  in  the  boy 
to  notice  what  the  bug  was  doing,  for  then  he 
might  learn  something  worth  knowing." 

"  But,  Uncle  Philip,  is  it  wrong  to  kill  spi- 
ders r 

"  Spiders  !  Why,  boys,  the  spider  is  one 
of  the  very  last  of  these  little  creatures  that 
I  should  wish  to  kill.  There  is  not  a  more 
curious  little  animal  in  the  world,  nor  one 
that  will  pay  a  man  better  for  watching  its 
motions.  At  some  other  time  I  will  tell  you 
all  about  spiders  and  ants,  for  I  have  noticed 
them  a  great  deal :  but  now,  just  to  show  you 
how  much  you  would  lose  if  you  should  kill 
all  the  spiders,  I  will  talk  with  you  about  a 
tool  which  man  uses,  and  which  he  might 
have  learned  to  make  from  a  spider." 

"  Oh,  do  tell  us  ;  what  is  it  ?" 

"  The  next  time  you  go  to  Mr.  Brown's,  the 
silversmith,  ask  him  to  show  you  his  plate 


90  CONVERSATIONS    ON 

for  drawing  out  wire.  Tell  him  that  I  told 
you  to  ask  him,  and  he  will  show  it  to  you. 
You  will  see  a  flat  piece  of  steel  with  holes 
made  through  it  in  regular  lines,  beginning 
with  a  large  size,  and  growing  smaller  and 
smaller  until  the  last  is  very  small  indeed. 

"Now  the  wire  is  drawn  through  these 
holes  ;  beginning  at  the  larger  ones,  and  pass- 
ing every  time  through  the  next  smaller  one, 
it  stretches  the  wire  out,  until  it  becomes  as 
small  as  the  workman  wishes  it  to  be. 

"  The  spider  is  a  wire-drawer,  too ;  for  it 
has  a  contrivance  to  draw  out  its  threads,  and 
make  them  smaller  or  larger,  as  it  pleases. 
If  you  will  look  at  a  very  large  spider,  you 
can  see  with  your  naked  eye,  just  at  the  end 
of  its  body,  four,  and  sometimes  six,  little 
knobs  like  teats,  with  a  circle  around  them. 
These  are  its  spinners.  Each  one  of  these 
small  knobs,  inside  of  that  circle,  is  so  full 
of  little  holes  or  tubes,  that  Mr.  Reaumur 
(of  whom  I  told  you  before,  you  will  re- 
collect) calculated  that  a  place  no  larger 
than  the  point  of  a  pin  had  a  thousand  of 
these  little  holes  in  it.  These  holes  are 
sometimes  so  very  small,  that  another  gentle- 


NATURAL    HISTORY. 


91 


man,*  who  looked  at  spiders  through  a  micro- 
scope very  often,  thought  it  would  take  four 
millions  of  the  threads  which  came  through 
those  holes  to  make  one  thread  as  thick  as  a 
hair  of  his  beard.  Here  is  a  picture  of  a  spider 
hanging  by  a  thread  coming  out  of  its  spinner, 
or,  as  it  is  sometimes  called,  its  spinneret." 


"  Then,  Uncle  Philip,  the  spider  does  not 
spin  its  thread  all  at  once  ?" 


*  Leuwenhoek. 


92  CONVERSATIONS    ON 

"  No,  boys.  Fine  as  you  see  that  thread  to 
be,  it  is  not  one  single  line,  but  it  is  made  of 
many  thousands  joined  together.  The  spi- 
ders have  little  bags  of  gum  within  their  bod- 
ies, near  their  spinners,  and  out  of  these  they 
draw  the  threads  :  when  they  have  come  out 
about  the  tenth  part  of  an  inch,  they  join 
them  all  into  one  with  their  claws  ;  and  they 
can  shut  their  spinners  when  they  please,  so 
as  to  make  the  threads  longer  or  shorter ;  and 
they  can  break  them  off,  too,  when  they  wish." 

"But,  Uncle  Philip,  we  do  not  see  why 
there  should  be  so  many  threads  to  make  up 
one." 

"  I  cannot  exactly  tell  you,  boys,  why  there 
are  so  many ;  but  probably  to  make  the  thread 
dry  quicker,  by  letting  the  air  touch  so  many 
parts  of  it :  and  I  expect,  too,  the  thread  is 
stronger,  because  we  know  that  in  two  pieces 
of  cord  of  one  size,  if  one  is  made  of  several 
smaller  cords  put  together,  it  will  be  stronger 
than  the  other,  which  was  spun  all  at  once. 
The  following  is  a  picture  of  the  spider's  spin- 
nerets, and  some  of  the  threads  as  -it  appears 
through  the  microscope ;  only  you  must  re- 
collect that  all  the  threads  are  not  drawn: 


NATURAL   HISTORY.  93 

there  are  a  great  many  more  than  you  see  in 
the  picture." 


Spider's  Threads  coining  from  the  Spinnerets 


94  CONVERSATIONS   ON 


CONVERSATION  VIII. 

Uncle  Philip  tells  the  Children  of  a  Door, 
with  a  Hinge  and  Spring  to  it,  made  by 
a  Spider  ;  and  shows  them  Pictures  to  let 
them  see  the  Difference  between  God's 
Work  and  Man's. 

"  I  WAS  thinking,  boys,  last  night,  of  what 
you  said  about  killing  the  poor  spiders ;  and 
I  was  sorry  that  I  did  not  then  recollect  one 
thing  about  a  spider  which  I  could  have  told 
you,  and  which  would  have  made  you  like  the 
poor  little  creatures  better.  However,  I  deter- 
mined that  when  you  came  to  see  me  again, 
it  should  be  the  first  thing  I  would  tell  you, 
if  you  wished  to  hear  it." 

"Wish  to  hear  it!  Why,  Uncle  Philip, 
we  always  wish  to  hear  you  tell  us  of  any 
thing  that  you  please  to  talk  about.  You 
have  told  us  of  a  great  many  strange  things, 
about  which  we  knew  (nothing  before ";  and 


NATURAL    HISTORY.  95 

we  will  thank  you  to  tell  us  the  story  about 
the  spider." 

"  Very  well,  boys ;  you  shall  hear  it.  Pray, 
do  you  not  think  that  it  is  a  piece  of  difficult 
work  to  make  a  door  to  a  house,  and  to  make 
hinges  to  hang  it  with,  and  to  fit  it  so  nicely 
that  when  it  is  done  you  cannot  see  the  joints 
where  the  door  is  shut  V 

"  Indeed  it  is  a  piece  of  very  hard  work, 
Uncle  Philip,  and  it  takes  the  carpenter  a  long 
time  to  do  it ;  and  it  is  hard  work,  too,  for  the 
blacksmith  to  make  the  hinges.  But  what 
has  that  to  do  with  the  story  about  the  spider  ?" 

"  Patience,  boys,  patience  :  you  shall  know 
presently.  Never  be  in  too  great  a  hurry  :  it 
is  a  bad  plan.  I  have  always  noticed  that 
those  persons  who  hurried  most,  went 
slowest  in  the  end.  Another  question  I  wish 
to  ask  you  is  this, — do  you  not  think  it 
was  hard  work  for  the  first  man  who  ever 
made  a  spring,  and  put  it  on  a  door,  to  make 
it  shut  itself  again  when  it  had  been  opened  ?" 

"  Yes,  it  was  so  :  and  the  man  who  does  it 
now  gets  well  paid  for  it." 

"Very  good,  boys.  And  now  what  will 
you  say  when  I  tell  you  that  a  poor  little  spi- 
der did  all  these  things  long  before  man  did'2" 


96  CONVERSATIONS   ON 

"  What,  Uncle  Philip !  A  spider  make  a 
door  with  a  hinge  and  a  spring  to  make  it 
shut  itself!" 

"  Yes,  boys ;  a  spider.  Do  you  think  he 
deserves  to  be  killed  for  doing  it  ?" 

"  Oh  no,  no  !  But  pray  tell  us  all  about  it, 
UncJe  Philip." 

"  This  kind  of  spider,  then,  boys,  I  saw  in 
Jamaica,  and  I  saw  its  house,  too.  It  is  called 
the  mason-spider.  The  nest  or  house  which 
I  saw  was  a  tube  made  of  very  hard  clay, 
about  six  inches  long,  and  an  inch  across,  and 
was  a  little  bent  at  one  end.  The  inside  of 
this  tube  was  lined  all  the  way  through  with 
a  kind  of  soft  silky  stuff,  something  like  silk- 
paper,  but  stronger,  and  it  was  of  a  yellowish 
colour  ;  but  the  curious  part  was  the  door.  I 
never  saw  any  thing  which  an  insect  had 
made  more  strange  than  that.  This  door  was 
round,  about  as  large  as  a  quarter  of  a  dollar, 
and  was  a  little  hollowed  on  the  upper  side 
like  a  saucer ;  the  inside  of  it  was  rounded 
like  the  outside  of  the  saucer.  It  was  of  the 
same  stuff  with  the  lining  of  the  nest,  and 
seemecl  to  be  made  of  more  than  a  dozen 
pieces  of  that  lining,  put  one  on  the  top  of  an- 
other :  it  was  shaped  so,  too,  that  the  inside 


NATURAL   HISTORY.  9? 

layers  or  pieces  were  the  broadest,  and  the 
outside  ones  became  smaller  and  smaller,  ex- 
cept at  the  hinge,  which  was  about  an  inch 
long.  All  the  pieces  in  the  door  were  joined 
into  this  hinge,  and  then  the  hinge  was  joined 
and  worked  into  the  lining  in  the  tube. 
That  made  the  hinge  the  thickest  and  strong- 
est part  of  the  whole  work.  How  the  spider 
made  it  so,  boys,  I  cannot  tell ;  but  so  it  was, 
that  this  hinge  not  only  was  a  hinge,  but  was 
so  good  a  spring,  that  whenever  the  door  was 
opened  it  would  shut  itself  immediately: 
and  when  shut,  it  fitted  so  nicely  that  it  was 
very  difficult  to  see  the  place  of  joining." 

"  Well,  Uncle  Philip,  this  is  most  wonder- 
ful !  But  will  not  the  hinge  wear  out  at 
last?" 

"  Wonderful  as  it  is,  boys,  it  is  all  true.  As 
to  its  wearing  out,  I  cannot  tell  you ;  but  I 
know  that  a  gentleman  who  had  one,  said 
that  his  friends  were  very  anxious  to  see  it ; 
and  there  were  so  many  of  them,  that  he  had 
to  open  the  door  and  let  it  shut  itself  many 
hundreds  of  times  to  satisfy  them  ;  and  it  did 
not  hurt  the  spring  at  all." 

"Uncle  Philip,  we  shall  not  kill  the  poor 
spiders  any  more." 


y»  CONVERSATIONS    ON 

"  A  good  resolution,  boys :  only  let  them 
alone,  and  they  will  not  hurt  you.     There  is 
another  kind  of  mason-spider,  which  I  never 
saw,  but  I  have  read  of  it.     It  is  found  in  the 
south  of  France  ;  I  did  not  happen,  however, 
to  meet  with  one  while  I  was  in  that  beauti- 
ful country.      This  kind   digs  a  gallery  or 
hole  under  ground  as  much  as  a  foot  deep. 
She  lines  it  with  a  sort  of  silk  glued  to  the 
walls,  and  makes  her  door,  which  is  round 
also,  with  many  layers  of  mud  or  earth  all 
kneaded  and  bound  together  with  some  of 
her  silk.     On  the  outside,  the  door  is  flat  and 
rough,  to  make  it  appear  like  the  dirt  around 
it,  and  hide  it ;  on  the  inside  it  is  shaped  like 
the  inside  of  the  door  of  the  other  spider  I 
have  told  you  about ;  and  all  covered  with  a 
coat  of  fine  silk.     The  threads  of  this  silk  are 
left  long  on  one  side,  and  fastened  to  the  up- 
per part  of  the  hole ;  and  these  make  the 
hinge.     There  is  no  spring  to  this  ;  but  when 
the  spider  pushes  its  door  open   and  comes 
out,  it  shuts  again  by  its  own  weight.     If  this 
door  is  forced  open  by  any  one  when  the  spi- 
der is  at  home,  she  will  catch  hold  of  it  and 
pull  it  in ;  and   sometimes  even  when  it  is 
half-opened,  she  will  snatch   it  out  of  the 


NATURAL   HISTORY. 


99 


hand.  Here  is  a  picture  which  shows  the  nest 
open,  and  another  of  it  shut ;  and  there  is  a 
drawing  of  the  spider,  too. 


A,  the  Nest  shut ;  B,  the  Nest  open ;  0,  the  Spider ;  D,  the  Eyes,  mag- 
nified; E,  F,  Parts  of  the  Foot  aad  Claw  magnified. 

A  gentleman  says,  in  a  book  which  he  wrote 
about  insects,  that  he  once  broke  one  of  these 
doors  off,  to  see  what  the  spider  would  do." 
"  And  what  did  she  do,  Uncle  Philip  ?" 
"  She  made  another  door ;  but  took  very 
good  care  not  to  put  any  hinge  to  it,  for  fear 


100  CONVERSATIONS    ON 

she  should  be  disturbed  again.  But  when  she 
thought  all  danger  was  gone,  she  could  then  put 
a  hinge  to  it,  you  know ;  and  probably  she  did." 

"  Well,  Uncle  Philip,  we  thank  you  again 
for  this  account  of  the  spiders,  and  shall  always 
look  at  them  hereafter  with  more  pleasure. 
Who  would  have  thought  that  we  should  ever 
find  doors  and  hinges  among  such  little  crea- 
tures, and  these  too  so  very  well  made  and 
fitted !" 

"  Why,  boys,  I  have  noticed  the  works  of 
God  very  often  ;  and  I  will  now  tell  you  one 
thing  which  I  always  found.  It  is  this :  a  piece 
of  the  very  best  work  which  man  can  make 
is  really  coarse  when  you  compare  it  with  the 
work  of  God.  The  poor  spider  that  we  have 
talked  about,  when  she  makes  her  door,  makes 
it  to  fit  perfectly  ;  because  in  doing  that  one 
thing,  God  made  her  to  know  perfectly  how 
to  do  it.  The  knowledge  is  God's,  boys  ;  but 
the  work  is  the  spider's  :  but  in  making  any 
thing  else,  except  about  her  house,  the  spider 
knows  nothing." 

"  Uncle  Philip,  you  told  us  once  that  you 
were  very  fond  of  watching  all  sorts  of 
dumb  animals,  and  we  think  now  that  we 
know  the  reason." 

"Well,  what  is  it  ?J> 


NATURAL    HISTORY.  101 

"  It  is  because  you  see  so  much  of  God's 
knowledge  in  them  ;  is  it  not  ?" 

"  Yes,  my  dear  boys,  it  is.  When  I  look  at 
many  things  which  man  makes  or  does,  I 
think  to  myself,  <  Now  this  thing  is  likely  to 
have  a  mixture  of  sense  and  nonsense  in  it; 
the  sense  is  God's,  and  the  nonsense  is  man's.' 
But  when  I  look  at  a  thing  made  by  one  of 
the  dumb  creatures  for  its  own  comfort  and 
safety,  like  the  spider's  house,  with  its  door 
and  hinge,  for  instance,  I  say  to  myself, '  Now 
here  is  the  wisdom  of  God,  without  any  of 
man's  nonsense.'  And  yet,  boys,  men  are  far 
wiser  than  any  other  animal  in  this  world." 

"  But,  Uncle  Philip,  you  said  that  a  piece 
of  man's  best  work  was  really  coarse  :  some 
things  must  be  neat,  we  should  think.  Is  the 
point  of  a  needle  coarse  ?  It  does  not  seem  so." 

"  Boys,  you  have  mentioned  the  very  thing 
which  was  in  my  mind  when  I  spoke.  The 
point  of  the  smallest  needle  is  very  coarse. 
You  have  heard  me  talk  of  the  microscope. 
I  told  you  it  was  a  set  of  glasses,  so  fixed  that 
when  you  looked  through  them,  it  made  small 
things  appear  very  large  :  on  some  other  day, 
perhaps,  I  will  let  you  look  through  my  mi- 
croscope for  yourselves  ;  but  now,  I  just  wish 


102 


CONVERSATIONS    ON 


to  show  you  the  difference  between  the  work 
of  God  and  that  of  man.  Let  us  go  home, 
and  I  will  show  you  some  pictures  I  made, 
and  you  can  see  in  them  the  difference.  Last 
winter,  you  know,  was  very  cold,  and  there 
was  a  great  deal  of  snow  :  one  day,  while  the 
snow  was  falling  pretty  fast,  I  was  obliged  to 
go  out ;  and  as  the  flakes  of  snow  fell  upon 
the  sleeve  of  my  coat  (which  was  black),  I 
thought  they  had  a  curious  shape,  and  did  not 
all  appear  alike  ;  so  when  I  returned  home  I 
caught  some  of  the  flakes,  and  looked  at  them 
through  my  microscope.  They  were  so  beauti- 
ful that  I  made  pictures  of  them  ;  and  as  we 
have  now  reached  home,  just  let  me  step  into 
my  study,  and  I  will  bring  them  to  you.  Here 
they  are,  boys." 


Snow-flakes,  seen  through  a  Microscope. 


NATURAL    HISTORY.  103 

*  Oh,  Uncle  Philip  !  these  are  very  pretty; 
they  are  all  so  different,  too  !" 

"  Yes,  boys,  I  picked  out  different  ones  to 
draw :  when  I  was  done,  I  began  to  look  into 
my  books  to  find  out  what  others  had  written 
about  this  thing- ;  and  I  found  that  a  gentle- 
man named  Dr.  Hook  had  seen  more  than  a 
hundred  different  shapes  and  sizes  of  these 
flakes.  This  is  GOD'S  work,  boys. 

"  Now  I  have  brought  you  out  another  pic- 
ture :  it  is  the  point  of  a  very  small  needle, 
seen  through  the  -very  same  microscope  which 
showed  me  the  snow-flakes.  Just  look  at  it, 
boys.  This  is  man's  work." 


The  Point  of  a  very  small  Needle,  seen  through  the  Microscope 


104  CONVERSATIONS   ON 


CONVERSATION  IX. 

Uncle  Philip  tells  the  Boys  a  Story  about  a 
Philosopher  and  his  Kite. — He  tells  them, 
too,  about  Ants  that  have  Awls,  and  build 
Cities,  and  Stairs,  and  Bridges,  and  many 
other  things. 

"  So,  boys,  you  have  come  again  to  see  me. 
I  am  very  glad  of  it ;  for  as  this  is  a  leisure 
day,  we  shall  have  time  enough  to  talk :  but 
what  is  that  you  have  there  ?  Oh,  I  see  now; 
it  is  a  kite." 

"  Yes,  Uncle  Philip ;  it  is  a  French  kite  that 
we  have  been  making,  and  we  have  come  to 
ask  you  to  go  out  with  us  this  morning  and 
see  us  fly  it." 

"  Very  good,  boys  ;  I  will  go.  I  am  an  old 
man  now ;  but  I  remember  that  I  was  a  boy 
once,  and  loved  to  make  a  kite  sail.  It  always 
makes  me  happy  to  see  boys  and  girls  playing 
about  in  health,  provided  they  are  not  wast- 
ing time,  and  their  play  is  not  to  do  harm 


NATURAL    HISTORY.  105 

to  anybody  or  any  thing.  So  come  on  ;  we 
will  go  out  upon  the  green  common  yonder, 
behind  the  church,  and  I  think  we  shall  have  a 
grand  kite-flying,  for  the  wind  is  about  right. 

"  There,  boys  !  up  she  goes  !  Let  out  the 
string.  I  think  she  behaves  very  well ;  there, 
she  is  done  pitching  about :  now  she  is  steady ; 
see  how  she  mounts.  Ah,  that  is  a  very 
good  kite." 

"  Uncle  Philip,  I  was  reading  a  book  yes- 
terday which  said,  c  A  philosopher  once  found 
great  help  from  a  kite.7  What  did  it  mean  ?" 

"  Do  you  know  what  a  philosopher  is  ?" 

"  Yes,  Uncle  Philip  ;  a  philosopher  is  the 
same  thing  with  a  very  wise  man,  is  it  not  ?" 

"  That  is  pretty  near  the  meaning.  Phi- 
losopher means  a  person  who  loves  wisdom ; 
and  such  a  person,  you  know,  will  always  be 
trying  to  get  knowledge  ;  and  a  person  who 
is  always  trying  to  get  knowledge  is  apt  to 
be  a  wise  and  learned  man." 

"  Well,  how  could  a  kite  help  a  man  to  get 
learning  ?  Did  he  read  the  old  newspapers  it 
was  made  of?  I  cannot  see  any  other  way." 

"  But  there  may  be  another  way  without 
your  seeing  it,  you  know.  The  philosopher 


106  CONVERSATIONS   ON 

whom  your  book  meant  was  Dr.  Franklin. 
Did  you  ever  hear  of  him  ?" 

"  Oh,  yes  ;  he  was  born  in  Boston,  and  was 
a  printer,  and  afterward  became  a  very  great 
man." 

"  That  is  true.  He  was  a  man  of  excellent 
sense,  who  both  read  and  thought  a  great 
deal ;  and  in  the  war  which  the  people  of  this 
country  had  with  England  to  get  their  free- 
dom, Dr.  Franklin's  sound  sense  was  of  great 
use  to  his  countrymen." 

"But,  Uncle  Philip,  how  did  the  kite  help 
him  ?" 

"  I  will  tell  you.  If  you  take  a  proper  piece 
of  glass,  or  sulphur,  or  sealing-wax,  or  rosin, 
and  rub  it  for  some  time,  and  then  hold 
it  near  to  small  bits  of  thread  or  paper,  the 
thread  or  paper  will  fly  towards  the  glass  or 
sealing-wax,  and  stick  to  it  for  a  short  time. 
That  which  makes  them  fly  to  the  glass  and 
stick  there,  is  called  electricity.  After  this 
was  found  out,  men  went  on  slowly  finding 
out  more  and  more,  until  at  last  a  man  named 
Hawksbee  made  a  large  machine  with  a  glass 
barrel,  which  could  be  turned  around  by  a  han- 
dle like  that  which  you  see  to  a  grindstone  ; 
and  with  this  machine  (which  I  will  show  you 


NATURAL  HISTORY.  107 

at  some  other  time)  he  managed  to  get  a  great 
deal  of  this  electricity,  and  it  would  shoot  off 
in  sparks,  which  appeared  like  little  lightning. 
"  And  now,  boys,  what  I  am  going  to  tell 
you  will  show  you  the  use  of  a  man's  eyes. 
Dr.  Franklin  knew  all  about  the  electrical  ma- 
chine, and  was  very  fond  of  drawing  off  the 
sparks  from  it,  to  see  what  he  could  find  out 
about  it.  And  when  he  saw  it  appeared  so 
much  like  lightning,  and  could  feel  too  a 
spark  strike  his  hand  a  smart  blow,  he  began 
to  think  that  perhaps  it  was  exactly  the  same 
thing  with  the  lightning  which  came  from  the 
clouds  ;  so  he  determined,  if  he  could,  to  find 
out  whether  it  was  or  not.  He  was  a  great 
deal  troubled  for  some  time  to  know  how  he 
should  get  down  any  of  the  lightning  from 
the  clouds ;  until  at  last,  one  day,  he  saw  a 
boy  flying  a  kite ;  and  that  showed  him  the 
way.  So  he  took  a  large  silk  handkerchief, 
and  stretching  it  upon  sticks,  soon  made  his 
kite  ;  and  not  long  afterward,  when  he  saw  a 
black  thunder-cloud  coming  up,  he  took  his 
kite  and  walked  out  of  Philadelphia  (where 
he  then  lived)  into  the  fields,  and  sent  his  kite 
up.  He  had  a  string  like  yours,  made  of 
hemp,  and  to  the  end  of  this  he  tied  an  iron 


108  CONVERSATIONS    ON 

key,  and  then  fastening  it  to  the  post  of  a:  shed 
by  a  silk  cord,  which  he  tied  to  the  end  of  the 
hemp  string,  he  got  under  the  shed,  and 
waited  a  long  time.  Now,  boys,  if  he  had 
been  impatient,  all  his  work  would  have  been 
of  no  use.  Bat  he  even  waited,  after  a  very 
heavy  cloud  had  passed  over  his  kite  without 
giving  it  any  of  its  lightning.  At  last,  when 
he  was  almost  ready  to  give  it  up  and  go 
home,  he  saw  some  loose  threads  on  the  hemp 
string  rise  and  stand  up  straight,  just  as  he 
knew  the  electrical  machine  would  make  them 
do.  He  directly  put  his  knuckle  to  the  iron 
key,  and  off  came  the  spark,  which  he  knew 
at  once  was  exactly  like  the  spark  which  he 
could  get  from  the  machine.  And  so,  boys, 
he  found  out  what  he  wished  to  know ;  and 
this  was  the  way  in  which  the  kite  helped 
the  philosopher." 

"  Well,  Uncle  Philip,  this  is  really  a  very 
pretty  story  about  Dr.  Franklin  and  his  kite. 
Was  anybody  with  him  1% 

"  Nobody  but  his  son ;  he  took  him  out  to 
help  him  raise  the  kite.  But,  boys,  I  see  the 
other  lads  are  walking  on  towards  the  bridge 
with  our  kite  ;  let  us  follow  them,  and  as  we 
go,  I  will  tell  you  of  an  electric  animal" 


NATURAL    HISTOR  Y.  109 

"  Oh,  we  shall  be  very  glad  to  hear  of  him.71 

"Listen,  then.      There   is   a  kind  of  eel, 

which  when  it  is  touched  will  give  a  very 

hard  blow,  just  like  an  electric  shock,  to  the 

person  who  touches  it." 

"  Is  there  any  spark,  Uncle  Philip  ?" 
"  No,  boys  ;  there  is  no  spark, — but  the  blow 
is  tremendous.  I  remember  reading  of  one 
of  these  fish  which  was  caught  in  a  net,  and 
a  foolish  sailor  would  take  it  up,  though  he 
was  told  it  would  hurt  him.  The  fish  shocked 
him  so  violently  that  he  fell  down  in  a  fit, 
and  it  was  a  long  time  before  he  came  to  his 
senses ;  and  his  story  was,  that  the  moment 
he  touched  the  fish,  i  the  cold  ran  swiftly  up 
his  arm  into  his  body,  and  pierced  him  to  the 
heart.7  The  fish  has  this  power  to  defend 
itself,  and  to  kill  other  fish  for  food." 

"  But,  Uncle  Philip,  how  do  they  ever  man- 
age to  catch  them  alive  ?  I  should  think  they 
would  be  shocked  to  death." 

"  I  will  tell  you.  ?A  very  sensible  traveller 
and  learned  man*  gives  an  account  of  the 
manner  in  which  they  catch  them,  by  a  way 
called,  by  the  South  American  Indians,  '  fish- 
ing with  horses.7 " 

*  M.  Humboldt. 
K 


110  CONVERSATIONS    OW 

"  Fishing  with  horses  !  What  does  that 
mean  ?" 

"  The  savannas,  or  large  open  plains,  in 
South  America  have  a  great  many  wild  horses 
and  mules  running  over  them.  M.  Humboldt 
says  that  the  Indians  caught  about  thirty  of 
these,  and  drove  them  into  the  pond  where 
the  electrical  eels  were.  The  horses  made  a 
great  noise,  and  stirred  up  the  mud  with  their 
hoofs,  and  this  brought  up  the  eels  from  the 
bottom  in  a  great  rage.  They  were  very 
large,  and  looked  more  like  water-snakes  than 
like  eels ;  and  rising  to  the  top  of  the  water, 
they  crowded  under  the  bellies  of  the  horses 
and  mules,  and  began  to  shock  them.  The 
poor  horses  would  try  to  get  out  of  the  pond ; 
but  the  Indians,  with  spears  and  long  reeds, 
would  stand  around  to  hinder  them  from  com- 
ing out:  some  of  them,  too,  would  climb 
upon  the  trees  around  the  banks,  and  get  out 
upon  the  branches  which  were  over  the  pond, 
and  by  crying  out  aloud,  and  using  their  long 
reeds,  kept  the  horses  in  the  pond.  The  eels 
would  continue  to  shock  them  with  tremen- 
dous blows,  and  a  great  many  of  the  poor 
creatures  were  either  stunned  or  killed,  and 
would  sink.  Those  not  killed  would  pant 


NATURAL   HISTORY.  Ill 

and  raise  their  heads,  while  their  eyes  would 
show  their  pain,  and  they  would  try  to  get 
out.  The  Indians  still  drove  them  back,  but 
some  few  escaped,  and  reached  the  shore, 
stumbling  at  every  step,  and  would  stretch 
themselves  on  the  bank,  tired  out,  and  be- 
numbed in  thek  limbs  by  the  shocks  they 
had  received.  M.  Humboldt  says  that  in  less 
than  five  minutes  after  the  fight  began,  two 
horses  were  drowned;  and  he  thought  that 
the  end  of  it  would  be,  that  every  horse  which 
did  not  get  out  of  the  water  would  be  killed  : 
but  at  last  the  eels  became  tired,  and  began 
to  disperse.  This  is  just  what  the  Indians 
wish.  They  know  that  the  eels  have  spent 
so  much  of  their  electrical  power  that  they 
will  need  a  long  rest.  It  takes  them  a  great 
while  to  get  back  their  strength  ;  so  that  if, 
the  next  day  after  such  a  fight,  you  send  in 
more  horses,  they  cannot  kill  one.  When 
the  eels,  tired  out  in  this  way,  begin  to  sepa- 
rate, they  will  swim  to  the  edge  of  the  pond, 
and  there  the  Indians  take  them  with  small 
harpoons  fastened  to  long  cords.  When  the 
cords  are  dry,  the  Indian  feels  no  shock  in 
raising  the  eel  out  of  the  water.  In  this  way 


112  CONVERSATIONS    ON 

M.  Humboldt  got  five,  all  alive,  and  very  little 
hurt.  But  here  we  are  at  the  bridge." 

"  Uncle  Philip,  suppose  we  sit  down  under 
the  shade  of  this  tree,  and  rest." 

"  I  am  willing,  boys  ;  but  take  care  of  the 
damp  ground  :  there  is  an  old  piece  of  timber 
that  the  men  have  taken  out  of  the  bridge,  for 
I  see  they  have  been  mending  it ;  we  will  sit 
on  that."  . 

"  But,  Uncle  Philip,  what  shall  we  do  with 
the  kite  ?  shall  we  draw  it  down  ?" 

"  Do  with  it !  Why,  just  tie  the  end  of 
your  string  to  that  root,  and  it  will  take  care 
of  itself  in  this  wind." 

"  What  a  monstrous  piece  of  timber  this  is, 
Uncle  Philip !  It  must  have  taken  a  great 
many  men  to  move  it ;  and  see — there  are 
some  larger  ones  still  in  the  bridge.  It  must 
be  a  difficult  work  to  build  a  bridge." 

"  Yes,  it  is  so  :  but  there  are  bridges  much 
harder  to  build  than  our  little  wooden  one 
here.  Some  are  built  of  stone,  and  it  takes 
years  to  finish  them.  None  but  a  good  work- 
man can  plan  and  build  a  good  stone  bridge : 
but  I  know  a  little  fellow  that  can  make  as 
good  a  bridge  as  anybody ;  and  yet  no  man 
ever  taught  him  the  trade." 


NATURAL    HISTORY.  113 

"  Ah !  now  we  know  what  is  coming. 
You  are  going  to  tell  us  of  a  dumb  animal 
that  can  make  a  bridge." 

"  Yes,  I  am  :  and  a  small  animal  it  is,  too, 
for  it  is  an  ant." 

"  What  sort  of  an  ant  is  it  ?" 

"  It  is  called  the  white  ant ;  and  as  there  is 
a  great  deal  that  is  very  curious  about  this  in- 
sect, I  think  that  I  had  better  tell  you  all  about 
it  at  once." 

"Pray  do,  Uncle  Philip;  you  know  you 
promised  to  tell  us  about  ants." 

"  True,  boys  ;  and  I  like  to  keep  my  prom- 
ises. In  my  story  about  these  ants,  I  think,  if 
you  attend,  you  will  find  more  tools  ;  and  be- 
sides that,  you  will  hear  of  a  great  many 
things  which  man  makes,  and  which  show 
matters  quite  as  strange  as  any  of  which  I 
have  yet  told  you." 

"  What  are  they,  Uncle  Philip?" 

"  They  are  the  building  of  something  like  a 
city,  and  bridges,  and  stairs,  and  roads,  and 
tunnels  under  ground,  and—" 

"  Oh,  let  us  hear — let  us  hear  !  We  have 
heard  nothing  equal  to  this  yet." 

"Well,  then,  I  begin  by  telling  you  that 
these  insects  are  very  common  in  Africa, 


114  CONVERSATIONS   ON 

and  in  the  East  Indies,  and  are  troublesome 
enough,  for  they  eat  almost  every  thing  but 
metal  and  glass.  They  love  wood,  though, 
better  than  any  thing  else ;  and  they  are 
so  numerous  that  they  destroy  it  wonderfully 
fast.  They  are  very  cunning,  too  ;  they  never 
eat  the  outside  of  the  wood  first,  but  will 
work  upon  the  inside,  so  as  to  leave  the  outer 
part  not  thicker  than  a  piece  of  pasteboard. 
But  the  curious  things  I  meant  to  tell  you 
were  about  their  city  ;  so  I  will  go  on  to  that. 
When  they  first  begin  to  build  you  will  see 
little  hills  shaped  like  a  sugar-loaf,  and  rising 
up  above  the  ground  about  a  foot,  or  a  little 
more.  Here  is  a  picture  of  them. 


The  highest  of  these  little  hills  is  always  in 
the  middle ;  and  they  go  on  building  more 
and  more,  and  making  them  all  higher,  still 
keeping  the  tallest  one  in  the  centre.  When 


NATURAL    HISTORY. 


115 


they  have  made  them  as  high  as  they  wish, 
then  they  fill  in  the  spaces  between  the  tops 
of  all  these  sugar-loaf  hills,  so  as  to  make  one 
roof  over  all.  Here  is  a  picture  of  one  fin- 
ished. 


After  this  is  done,  they  take  down  nearly  all 
of  the  little  sugar-loaf  hills  inside  ;  for  they 
only  wanted  them  for  a  scaffold  to  support  the 
top  while  they  were  building  it." 

"Uncle  Philip,  what  is  all  this  built  of?" 
"  It  is  built  of  clay,  which  the  ant  makes 
almost  as  hard  as  stone." 


116  CONVERSATIONS    ON 

"Are  they  strong,  Uncle  Philip? 

"  So  strong,  boys,  that  five  men  may  stand 
on  them ;  and  it  is  a  common  thing  for  the 
wild  bulls  to  get  upon  them  and  look  out, 
while  the  rest  of  the  herd  are  feeding  below." 

"  Why,  how  high  are  they  ?" 

"  Oh,  of  different  heights  ;  some  as  many 
as  five  or  six  feet,  others  are  twelve,  and  the 
largest  are  as  high  as  twenty  feet,  and  would 
easily  hold  a  dozen  men." 

"  And  how  large  are  the  ants,  Uncle  Philip?" 

"  Not  above  a  quarter  of  an  inch  high  as 
they  stand.  Now,  boys,  just  compare  the 
size  of  one  of  these  nests  with  the  size  of  the 
ant  that  made  it ;  and  it  is  quite  as  large  in  pro- 
portion as  the  city  of  New  York  is  when  com- 
pared to  a  man's  size ;  yes,  it  is  a  great  deal 
larger  in  proportion.  These  nests  are  some- 
times five  hundred  times  as  high  as  the  ants 
which  build  them  :  now  suppose  that  men 
built  their  houses  five  hundred  times  as  high 
as  themselves,  and  as  large  at  the  foundation 
in  proportion  to  their  height,  what  monstrous 
buildings  they  would  be  !  But  let  me  go  on. 
This  outside  shell,  which  I  have  been  telling 
you  how  they  make,  is  nothing  but  the  wall 
of  the  city ;  the  buildings  are  all  inside  of 
that." 


NATURAL   HISTORY.  117 

"But,  Uncle  Philip,  there  is  one  thing  I 
have  been  thinking  of  which  would  make  it 
more  like  a  city  still.  But  I  hardly  think  they 
can  have  that." 

"What  is  it  ?" 

"  Why  in  a  city,  you  know,  where  there  are 
a  great  many  people,  there  are  a  great  many 
trades  :  some  do  one  thing  and  some  do  an- 
other to  get  money." 

"  Yes,  that  is  true  ;  and  I  am  glad  that  you 
mentioned  it,  because  it  reminds  me  of  one 
thing  I  intended  to  tell  you  about  these  ants. 
Now,  it  would  not  be  reasonable,  you  know, 
to  expect  the  ants  to  have  many  different  kinds 
of  business  to  do,  as  the  people  in  New- York 
have ;  but  still,  boys,  they  are  not  all  alike, 
and  they  do  have  work  of  different  kinds. 
There  are  in  the  city  of  the  white  ants  a  king 
and  a  queen,  and  soldiers,  and  labourers,  or 
workmen,  and  all  these  are  different.  Here 
are  pictures  which  will  show  them  all  to  you. 
This  is  the  king. 


King  of  the  Termite! 


118 


CONVERSATIONS    ON 


At  first  he  has  four  wings,  but  soon  loses 
them.  He  never  grows  any  larger  after  he 
loses  them.  The  king  may  be  known  by  his 
having  two  large  eyes.  Here  is  the  queen. 
She  is  the  mother  of  the  whole  city ;  and  you 
see  what  a  large  body  she  has.  It  is  full  of 
eggs,  and  eighty  thousand  will  come  from  her 
in  twenty-four  hours.  She  also  has  two  eyes. 


Queen  of  the  Termites. 


"Here  is  a  soldier:  he  has  a  large  head, 
armed  with  two  hooks,  shaped  like  a  crooked 
awl,  and  very  sharp. 


Soldier  of  the  Termites. 

"  For  every  one  of  these  soldiers  there  are 
about  one  hundred  labourers.  The  soldiers 
do  the  fighting ;  and  though  they  are  perfectly 
blind,  they  fight  well,  and  are  very  brave. 


NATURAL   HISTORY.  119 

The  following  is  a  picture,  too,  of  the  soldiers' 
awls,  seen  through  the  microscope,  to  show 
you  how  sharp  they  are. 


"And  here  is  a  picture  of  the  labourer;  the 
largest  part  of  the  city  is  made  up  of  the  la- 
bourers,— which  shows  us,  I  think,  boys,  that 
there  is  more  need  of  working  than  there  is 
of  fighting. 


Labourer  of  the  Termites. 

This  class,  like  the  soldiers,  is  blind,  and 
scarcely  ever  go  into  the  open  air  ;  their  work 
is  mostly  under  ground  or  in  the  inside  of 
wood.  Both,  however,  do  come  out  when 
their  city  is  attacked  and  broken :  but  I  will 
tell  you  of  that  presently." 


120  CONVERSATIONS   ON 


CONVERSATION  X. 

Uncle  Philip  tells  the  Children  more  about  the 
White  Ants. 

"  Now,  boys,  as  I  have  told  you  about  the 
kinds  of  different  work  which  these  ants  do, 
we  will  go  on,  and  I  will  tell  you  about  the 
inside  of  the  city.  The  first  thing  to  be  done 
is  to  build  a  house  for  the  king  and  queen. 
This  is  the  first  house  built  in  the  city,  and 
always  stands  in  the  centre,  directly  under 
the  point  of  the  roof  or  top  of  the  outside  wall. 
It  is  built  nearly  on  a  level  with  the  ground, 
and  is  shaped  very  much  like  a  long  oven,  or 
the  half  of  an  egg  split  through  the  long  way. 
The  floor  is  exactly  level,  and  about  an  inch 
thick ;  the  roof  is  about  the  same  thickness. 
The  doors  are  on  a  level  with  the  floor,  and 
just  large  enough  to  let  one  of  the  labourers 
go  in." 

"  Why,  Uncle  Philip,  how  do  the  king  and 
queen  ever  get  out  then." 


NATURAL   HISTORY.  121 

"  They  never  do  get  out,  boys  ;  they  live  in 
that  house  always,  and  they  are  not  the  first 
kings  and  queens  who  have  found  that  a 
palace  is  sometimes  a  prison.  Just  around 
this  house  of  the  king  and  queen  are  other 
houses  built  of  clay,  arched  at  the  top,  and  of 
different  shapes.  These  are  for  the  servants 
or  labouring  ants,  who  remove  the  eggs  of  the 
queen  as  fast  as  she  discharges  them.  The 
soldiers  also  live  in  these  houses.  Next  to 
these  are  the  magazines,  that  is,  the  houses 
where  they  keep  their  food,  such  as  dry  juices 
of  trees  and  gums ;  and  mixed  up  with  these  are 
the  nurseries.  These  are  made  by  the  labour- 
ers, and  are  different  from  all  the  other  build- 
ings, for  they  are  made  of  wood  gnawed  or 
broken  into  fine  threads,  and  joined  together 
with  some  kind  of  gum,  and  around  each  of 
them  there  is  a  case  of  clay.  These  nurse- 
ries are  to  carry  the  eggs  into  for  the  young 
ants  to  be  hatched.  Between  all  these  dif- 
ferent houses  or  parts  there  are  thousands  of 
galleries  or  ways,  which  run  among  them  and 
separate  them  from  each  other,  and  these 
may  be  called  the  streets  of  the  city.  These 
streets  run  in  all  directions,  and  extend  as  far 
as  the  outside  wall ;  and  houses  are  built  on 

L 


122  CONVERSATIONS    ON 

top  of  houses,  and  streets  run  over  streets, 
until  they  leach  up  as  high  as  two-thirds  of 
the  ins'.de  wall.  But  under  the  top  of  their 
outside  case  they  always  leave  a  large  open 
place  that  is  never  filled  up  with  houses.  And 
around  this  space  they  will  build  three  or  four 
large  arches,  sometimes  two  or  three  feet  high ; 
these  I  suppose  are  to  prevent  the  houses  from 
falling  in  towards  the  centre  of  the  city,  which 
is*  an  open  space,  and  on  the  other  side  they 
are  fastened  to  the  outside  walls,  so  that  these 
houses  are  very  firm." 

"And  what  is  all  this  made  of,  Uncle 
Philip?" 

"  All  of  clay,  except  the  nurseries,  which  I 
told  you  were  made  of  wood  and  gum.  Over 
the  house  of  the  king  and  queen  there  is  a 
sort  of  flat  floor,  some  distance  above  it,  with 
nurseries  and  magazines  between  the  under 
side  of  it  and  the  top  of  the  queen's  house. 
This  floor  will  not  let  the  water  through  it, 
so  as  to  wet  tlus  palace  where  the  king  and 
queen  live,  but  will  turn  it  off  into  large 
trenches  or  gutters  under  ground,  of  which 
I  will  speak  directly.  The  bridge  I  told  you 
of  they  build  from  this  floor  in  the  open 
space,  directly  under  the  top  or  dome  of  the 


NATURAL    HISTORY. 


123 


outside  wall ;  it  rises  up  and  is  joined  to  some 
hole  in  the  side  wall  of  the  houses  above  it." 

"  How  large  is  it,  Uncle  Philip  ?" 

"  Why,  sometimes  it  is  half  an  inch  broad, 
a  quarter  of  an  inch  thick,  and  ten  inches 
long ;  all  made  of  clay,  so  that  it  is  very  strange 
how  they  manage  to  join  it  to  the  wall  with- 
out its  falling  down  by  its  own  weight  while 
they  were  building  it." 

"  And  what  do  you  suppose  this  bridge  is 
for,  Uncle  Philip  ?" 

"  Why,  T  think  there  can  be  no  doubt  what 
it  is  for.  When  the  city  has  been  growing 
for  some  time,  some  of  the  nurseries  will  be 
very  high  up  above  the  queen's  house  ;  but  the 
labourers  have  to  carry  her  eggs  into  them, 
no  matter  how  far  oif  they  may  be.  If  they 
carry  them  through  all  the  streets,  they  will 
have  to  walk  as  many  as  fifteen  or  twenty 
feet,  for  it  would  be  five  or  six  feet  in  a  per- 
fectly straight  line,  and  these  streets  are  very 
crooked ;  but  if  they  make  a  bridge  in  the 
open  space  in  the  centre,  they  can  then  go 
from  the  queen's  house  over  the  bridge,  and 
get  to  the  upper  nurseries  without  travelling 
more  than  two  feet.  So  they  made  the  bridge 
to  shorten  the  way,  to  be  sure." 


124  CONVERSATIONS   ON 

"  This  is  very  wonderful :  but  you  said  some- 
thing about  large  trenches  or  gutters  under- 
ground ;  what  are  they,  Uncle  Philip  ?" 

"  These  galleries  lead  from  the  city  under 
ground,  and  are  as  large  as  the  bore  of  a  large 
cannon ;  they  are  thirteen  inches  across,  and 
more  than  a  hundred  yards  long.  I  have 
already  told  you  that  the  labourers  never  come 
out  into  the  light  when  they  can  help  it ;  and 
these  underground  ways  are  the  great  roads 
to  the  city,  to  fetch  in  clay,  or  wood,  or  water, 
or  provisions :  and  now  I  will  tell  you  an- 
other thing  which  shows  a  great  deal  of  sense. 
As  some  of  their  houses  are  very  high  up,  you 
know  they  would  find  it  very  hard  to  climb 
up  through  all  the  streets  with  a  heavy  load 
in  a  straight  line  ;  so  when  these  large  ways 
underground  reach  the  outside  wall,  they  just 
come  through  and  keep  on  winding  around 
the  inside  of  it  like  a  corkscrew  all  the  way 
to  the  top ;  and  there  are  other  galleries  open- 
ing from  it  at  different  places  into  the  city. 
One  thing  has  been  noticed  about  these  ants  ; 
they  can  scarcely  climb  at  all  up  a  perpen- 
dicular wall.  Therefore  on  the  upright 
side  of  any  part  of  the  city  you  may  see  a 
road  made,  standing  out  from  the  wall  like 


NATURAL   HISTORY. 


125 


a  ledge;  it  is  flat  on  the  top,  and  half  an 
inch  wide,  and  goes  up  gradually  like  a  stair- 
case, or  like  a  road  cut  out  on  the  side  of  a 
mountain. 

"  Here  is  a  picture  of  one  of  their  cities  cut 
straight  down  through  the  middle.  At  the 
bottom,  in  the  centre,  is  the  queen's  house ; 
over  it  is  a  floor,  and  the  two  crooked  things 
you  see  rising  up  from  the  floor,  are  bridges." 


126  CONVERSATIONS    ON 

"  But,  Uncle  Philip,  you  said  you  would  tell 
us  about  the  soldiers  and  labourers  coming 
out  when  the  city  is  attacked." 

"  Yes,  I  did.  As  soon  as  a  hole  is  made  in 
the  outside  wall,  you  will  see  a  soldier  run 
out,  and  walk  about  as  if  to  look  around  ;  but 
as  he  is  blind,  it  cannot  be  to  see  what  the 
danger  is.  He  may  have  some  way  though  of 
finding  out  without  seeing.  Presently  he  will 
go  in,  as  if  to  tell  the  others,  and  then  out 
pour  the  soldiers  in  great  numbers,  as  fast 
as  the  hole  will  let  them ;  and  just  as  long 
as  you  strike  the  outside  wall,  they  will 
continue  to  rush  out.  They  seem  to  be  in 
a  terrible  passion.  They  are  in  such  a  hurry 
that  sometimes  they  slip,  and  roll  down 
the  outside  of  the  hill;  but  they  jump  up 
again  instantly,  and  begin  to  bite  every  thing 
they  run  against,  for  they  are  blind  and  can- 
not tell  a  friend  from  an  enemy." 

"  Do  they  bite  hard,  Uncle  Philip  ?" 

"Yery  hard  indeed.  They  make  their 
hooked  jaws,  which  are  like  awls,  you  know, 
meet  at  every  bite ;  and  if  it  should  happen  to 
be  a  man's  leg  they  get  hold  of,  you  would  see 
upon  his  stocking  a  spot  of  blood  an  inch  long. 
At  every  bite  too  you  may  hear  their  jaws 


NATURAL   HISTORY.  127 

snapping  together  and  making  quite  a  noise. 
Some  of  them  too  (perhaps  they  are  the  officers) 
are  constantly  beating  with  their  awls  upon  the 
outside  wall,  and  make  a  sound  something 
quicker  and  sharper  than  the  tickingof  a  watch. 
You  may  hear  it  at  a  distance  of  three  or 
four  feet..  When  these  biters  lay  hold,  nothing 
will  make  them  let  go ;  you  must  tear  them 
away  by  pieces.  After  you  stop  striking  the 
wall,  in  about  half  an  hour  they  seem  to  get 
over  their  rage  and  go  back  into  the  city,  and 
then  out  come  the  labourers.  While  the  noise 
continues  you  will  not  see  one  of  them  ;  they 
all  fled  at  the  first  appearance  of  danger.  But 
now  they  come,  each  one  with  a  bundle  of 
mortar  in  his  mouth,  ready  made ;  and  they 
stick  it  on  the  hole  so  fast,  and  with  such 
order,  that  though  thousands  and  thousands 
are  at  work  they  never  interrupt  each  other. 
And  while  the  labourers  are  busy,  if  you  look 
you  may  commonly  see  a  soldier  or  two  walk- 
ing about ;  but  they  never  touch  the  mortar, 
nor  help  in  any  way  to  mend  the  hole.  One 
of  these  soldiers  always  stands  near  the  spot 
where  the  labourers  are  at  work,  and  every 
now  and  then  turns  slowly  around,  and  fre- 
quently lifts  up  his  head,  and  with  his  awls 


128  CONVERSATIONS    ON 

beats  upon  the  building,  and  makes  a  sort  of 
hissing  noise.  As  soon  as  that  is  done  you  may 
hear  a  loud  hiss  from  all  the  labourers,  both  on 
the  outside  of  the  wall  and  from  the  inside  of 
the  city,  and  then  the  labourers  run  faster,  and 
work  as  quick  again.  If  you  attack  the  nest 
again,  away  run  all  the  labourers  as  fast  as 
their  legs  will  carry  them,  and  out  pour  the 
soldiers  as  before ;  and  the  same  thing  is 
always  seen  upon  every  attack,  of  soldiers 
to  fight  and  labourers  to  work." 

"Well,  Uncle  Philip,  this  is  a  very  strange 
story;  much  more  interesting  than  any  we 
have  yet  heard." 

"  I  thought  it  would  please  you,  boys ;  but 
there  are  still  stranger  things  among  animals, 
and  perhaps  you  will  say  so  when  you  know 
more. 

"  But  it  is  now  time  to  return  home ;  so  take 
in  the  kite  and  let  us  be  going." 


NATURAL    HISTORY.  129 


CONVERSATION  XL 

Uncle  Philip  tells  the  Children  about  some 
other  Ants,  that  are  very  good  Masons,  and 
build  Walls  and  Ceilings;  and  a  Story 
about  a  very  sensible  Ant,  which  seemed  to 
think  a  little. 

"  GOOD  morning,  good  morning,  Uncle  Phi- 
lip ;  we  have  been  so  much  delighted  with 
the  stories  about  the  white  ants,  that  we  hope 
you  have  more  of  the  same  kind  to  tell  us." 

"  Why,  as  to  that  matter,  boys,  I  can  tell 
you  much  more  about  ants,  for  there  are  many 
kinds  of  them ;  but  I  am  not  sure  that  I  can 
show  you  any  of  the  tools  with  which  they 
work,  though  a  large  portion  of  their  work 
is  like  that  of  man  ;  and  they  have,  too,  sev- 
eral customs  which  our  fellow-creatures  have. 
I  can  tell  you,  however,  of  several  other 
animals  which  do  use  tools  shaped  like  those 
used  by  men,  if  you  would  rather  hear  of 
them." 


130  CONVERSATIONS   ON 

"  If  you  please,  Uncle  Philip,  we  will  hear  of 
them  at  another  time;  but  now  we  would  rather 
have  you  tell  us  of  the  other  kinds  of  ants." 

"  Oh,  very  well,  boys ;  it  shall  be  as  you 
wish.  All  that  I  desire  is  to  instruct  and 
amuse  you,  and  I  am  sure  that  the  ants  can 
furnish  a  good  lesson  to  us.  I  shall  begin 
with  the  mason  ants.  They  always  build 
their  nests  either  of  clay  which  is  damp,  and 
dug  from  the  inside  of  their  city  under  ground, 
or  which  has  been  made  wet  by  the  rain ;  and 
a  part  of  their  building  is  always  above  the 
ground,  so  that  you  can  easily  see  it.  There  is 
no  fixed  rule  for  the  ants  to  build  by.  Their 
cities  are  not  all  alike  in  the  inside.  Some- 
times the  walls  are  larger  and  coarser,  and  the 
ways  and  galleries  are  higher,  than  at  other 
times.  The  rooms,  too,  are  different  in  shape 
and  size,  so  that  this  industrious  little  insect 
seems  to  have  sense  enough  to  work  in  the 
best  way  according  to  circumstances.  There 
is  only  one  general  rule  which  they  seem  to 
have,  and  that  is  always  to  build  in  a  number 
of  different  stories,  one  above  the  other.  If 
you  examine  one  of  these  stories  you  may 
see  a  number  of  large  places  or  halls,  some 
smaller  rooms,  and  some  long  galleries  which 


NATURAL   HISTORY.  131 

serve  as  passage-ways.  The  tops  of  these 
large  halls  are  covered  with  an  arched  ceiling, 
and  this  ceiling  is  held  up,  sometimes  by  little 
columns,  sometimes  by  very  thin  walls,  or  by 
props  built  against  the  side  walls,  just  like  but- 
tresses. There  are  also  chambers  which  have 
but  one  door,  which  opens  into  the  lower 
story,  and  large  open  places  in  the  centre  of 
the  nest  something  like  a  cross  road,  and  all 
these  little  galleries  or  streets  come  into  that 
open  place." 

"  Any  bridges,  Uncle  Philip  ?" 

"  No,  boys  ;  no  bridges  among  these  ants,  so 
far  as  I  know.  There  will  sometimes  be  as 
many  as  twenty  stories  above  ground  in  the 
ant-hill,  and  as  many  below.  The  best  time 
to  see  these  little  fellows  at  work  is  in  a  gentle 
shower  of  rain,  or  directly  after." 

"Why  do  they  work  in  the  rain,  Uncle 
Philip?" 

"  I  suppose,  boys,  it  is  because  the  earth  is 
then  better  for  them ;  and  one  thing  that  has 
been  noticed  about  their  work  is,  that  the  rain, 
when  it  is  not  too  violent,  seems  to  make  it 
solid,  for  these  ants  have  no  gum  or  glue 
about  them  like  some  other  insects,  to  make 
the>?artri  stick  together.  As  soon  as  the  rain 


132  CONVERSATIONS    ON 

begins,  if  you  watch  the  brown  ants,  you  may 
see  them  come  out  of  the  ground  in  great 
numbers;  and  then  running  in  again,  they 
will  soon  return,  each  one  with  a  little  piece 
of  dirt  in  his  mouth,  which  he  puts  down 
upon  the  roof  of  the  nest.  A  gentleman  who 
watched  them  very  closely*  says,  that  at  first 
he  could  not  think  what  this  was  done  for,  but 
at  last  he  saw  little  walls  begin  to  rise  up 
with  spaces  left  between  them.  In  some 
places  pillars  were  begun,  placed  at  regular 
distances,  and  he  knew  that  these  were  to 
support  ceilings ;  so  he  found  out  that  they 
were  going  to  build  another  story  to  their 
house,  and  they  were  laying  the  foundations." 

"  How  I  should  have  liked  to  see  them, 
Uncle  Philip.  I  would  not  have  cared  for  the 
rain." 

"  Ah,  I  see  you  are  fit  to  be  a  naturalist. 
You  know  what  that  word  means,  do  you 
not?" 

"  It  means,  Uncle  Philip,  a  man  who  loves 
to  study  about  the  animals  and  insects,  does 
it  not  ?" 

"  It  means  a  man  or  a  woman  either,  boys, 
who  loves  to  study  the  things  in  nature  no 

*  Mr,  Huber  the  younger. 


NATURAL    HISTORY.  133 

matter  whether  they  are  animals,  or  stones, 
or  grass,  or  flowers,  or  any  of  the  things 
which  God  has  made.  Mark,  boys,  I  said  to 
study  the  things,  and  you  said  to  study  about 
the  things.  Now  a  person  may  read  a  great 
deal  that  is  interesting  and  true  about  all 
these  things  in  books ;  and  it  is  very  well  to 
do  so ;  but  I  think  that  the  real  naturalist 
will  never  be  satisfied  with  books  only ;  he 
will  be  looking  to  see  things  for  himself.  And 
I  said  a  woman  might  be  a  naturalist,  because 
some  ladies  have  been  fond  of  natural  history, 
and  have  proved  themselves  to  be  very  good 
naturalists.  But  let  us  go  back  to  the  ants. 
Mr.  Huber,  in  the  account  which  he  gives  of 
his  having  watched  these  little  workmen, 
never  thought  of  telling  us  whether  he  got 
wet  or  not,  because  he  was  too  busy  to  think 
or  care  much  about  it.  He  had  an  oppor- 
tunity of  seeing  what  he  might  never  see 
again,  and  a  little  rain  was  not  to  spoil  it. 
He  says  that  each  ant,  as  it  brought  out  its 
little  lump  of  dirt,  would  place  it  on  the  spot 
where  it  wished  it  to  be,  and  press  against  it 
with  its  teeth,  so  as  to  make  it  fit  closely.  It 
then  rubbed  its  feelers  all  over  it,  and  after 
that  pressed  upon  it  lightly  with  its  fore-feet. 

M 


134  CONVERSATIONS    ON 

The  walls  went  on  very  rapidly,  and  it  often 
happened  that  two  little  walls,  which  were  to 
make  a  passage  or  gallery,  would  be  raised 
opposite  and  at  a  small  distance  from  each 
other.  When  they  were  about  a  quarter  of 
an  inch  high,  the  ants  would  set  to  work  and 
cover  them  with  an  arched  ceiling.  After 
they  had  raised  all  the  walls  as  high  as  they 
wished,  on  the  inside  of  each  wall  at  the  top 
they  began  to  put  in  pieces  of  wet  dirt  almost 
level,  and  in  such  a  way  as  to  make  a  ledge; 
and  by  joining  on  more  dirt  to  it,  it  would 
meet  the  ledge  made  from  the  opposite  wall 
so  as  to  make  a  roof:  these  roofs  over  the 
galleries  were  about  a  quarter  of  an  inch 
across.  The  ceilings  over  the  large  halls 
were  sometimes  as  much  as  two  inches  in 
breadth,  and  to  support  these  they  raised 
pillars;  and  beginning  in  the  corner  where 
two  walls  joined,  they  would  commence  the 
ceiling  with  a  ledge,  while  from  the  top  of 
each  pillar  they  would  also  build  out  a  layer 
of  earth  a  little  rounded  on  the  top ;  these 
they  continued  to  add  to  until  all  met  and 
made  a  complete  cover  for  the  hall." 

"  I  wonder  it  did  not  fall,  Uncle  Philip,  be- 
fore they  could  join  it  together." 


NATURAL    HISTORY.  135 

"  Mr.  Huber  says  that  he  thought  several 
times  it  would  fall,  from  the  rain  which  was 
dropping  upon  it  all  the  time ;  but  he  found 
that  the  pieces  held  together,  and  that  the 
rain,  instead  of  hurting  it,  only  made  it  more 
solid.  All  that  it  wants,  when  the  ants  have 
done,  is  a  little  heat  from  the  sun  to  bake  it 
hard,  and  then  it  appears  like  a  piece  of  solid 
dirt.  Sometimes,  if  the  rain  be  violent,  the 
apartments  will  be  destroyed,  especially  if  the 
arches  are  not  built  strongly  ;  and  when  this 
happens,  the  little  creatures  go  to  work  very 
patiently  and  rebuild  them." 

"  And  how  long,  Uncle  Philip,  did  it  take 
the  ants  to  put  another  story  on  their  house  ?" 

"  Between  seven  and  eight  hours  ;  and  they 
had  hardly  finished  one  before  they  began  an- 
other, but  they  had  not  time  to  finish  it,  for 
the  rain  stopped  before  they  had  built  much  : 
however,  they  kept  on,  taking  advantage  of 
the  wet  earth ;  but  a  cold  drying  wind  soon 
sprang  up,  and  the  earth  would  not  stick ;  so 
they  stopped  :  but  what  do  you  think  they  did 
with  the  new  story  which  they  had  not  time 
to  finish  T 

"  What  did  they  do,  Uncle  Philip  ?" 

"  Pulled  every  part  of  it  to  pieces,  and  scat- 


136  CONVERSATIONS   ON 

tered  the  dirt  here  and  there  over  the  roof  of 
the  story  which  they  had  finished. 

"  I  will  tell  you  another  story  about  these 
ants,  boys,  which  I  think  is  most  wonderful, 
because  it  appears  so  much  like  reason. 
These  insects  all  seem  to  work  separately, — I 
mean  without  attending  to  the  work  of  oth- 
ers :  of  course  sometimes  the  work  done  by 
different  ants  on  opposite  sides  of  the  same 
gallery  or  hall  will  not  suit :  one  wall  will  be 
higher  than  the  other,  so  that  the  ceilings  will 
not  meet.  Mr.  Huber  saw  just  such  a  case  ; 
the  ceiling  which  was  begun  from  one  wall 
would  just  have  reached  the  other  wall  about 
half-way  up  ;  and  while  he  was  wondering 
how  the  ants  would  cure  the  fault,  one  of 
them  came,  and  looking  at  the  work,  seemed 
to  know  that  it  was  wrong,  and  immediately 
began  by  taking  down  the  ceiling  from  the 
lower  wall;  he  then  raised  it  to  the  same 
height  with  the  opposite  wall,  and  made  a 
new  ceiling  in  Mr.  Huber's  presence  with  the 
pieces  of  the  old  one." 

"  Uncle  Philip,  if  that  ant  did  not  know 
how  to  think,  I  am  mistaken." 

"  I  must  confess,  boys,  it  does  seem  very 
much  like  thinking  ;  and  if  it  was  not  think- 


NATURAL    HISTORY.  137 

ing,  we  must  at  any  rate  own  that  it  was 
something  which,  in  this  case,  did  quite  as 
well ;  for  no  thought  of  man  could  have  hit 
upon  a  better  plan.  But  if  the  ant  knew  how 
to  think  as  a  man  does,  do  you  suppose  it  would 
ever  have  made  the  mistake?  Would  not 
the  workmen  have  all  agreed  beforehand  what 
they  were  to  do,  and  how  it  should  be  done, 
so  that  there  might  be  no  need  of  pulling 
down  any  of  the  work  because  it  would  not 
suit  1  I  think  that  this  story,  boys,  while  it 
shows  us  something  like  reason  in  one  par- 
ticular instance,  shows  us  also  that  in  general 
the  ant  has  not  reason  like  ours.  But  I  am 
tired  now,  and  can  tell  you  no  more  this 
morning.  When  you  come  again  I  shall  be 
ready  to  talk  with  you  about  some  other  kinds 
of  ants.  But  before  you  go,  tell  me — can  any 
of  you  inform  me  what  the  Bible  says  about 
the  ant?" 

"  Oh  yes,  Uncle  Philip  :  it  says,  <  Go  to  the 
ant,  thou  sluggard,  consider  her  ways,  and  be 
wise.' " 

"Well,  another  question.  Have  you  any 
lessons  to  say  when  you  go  into  school  on 
Monday  ?" 

"  Yes,  Uncle  Philip  ;  we  have." 

M2 


138 


CONVERSATIONS    ON 


"  Have  you  learned  them,  boys  ?" 

"  No,  sir." 

"  Then  remember  what  the  Bible  says  to 
the  sluggard,  and  go  and  learn  them  at  once. 
Good-by,  children." 

"  Good-by,  Uncle  Philip  :  we  will  learn  our 
lessons." 


CONVERSATION  XII. 

Uncle  Philip  tells  the  Boys  about  Ants  that 
go  to  War  and  fight  Battles  ;  and  about 
some  that  are  Thieves^  and  have  Slaves. 

"  WELL,  my  lads,  how  do  you  do  to-day  ?" 

"  Very  well,  Uncle  Philip,  we  thank  you. 

And  we  wish  to  let  you  know  that  we  kept 

our  promise  to  learn  our  lessons.     Our  teacher 

was  very  well  satisfied  with  every  one  of  us." 

"  That  is  well,  boys.     I  am  truly  glad  to 

hear  this  from  you :  and  I  make  no  doubt 

that  you  also  felt  a  great  deal  happier  than  you 

would  have  done  had  you  neglected  to  learn 

your  lessons.    Did  you  not  ?" 


NATURAL    HISTORY.  139 

"  Oh  yes,  Uncle  Philip,  much  happier  ;  and 
far  more  cheerful  and  good-natured." 

"  Such  are  apt  to  be  the  feelings,  boys,  of 
those  who  have  done  their  duty.  I  am  verily 
persuaded  that  there  is  no  such  thing  as  real, 
solid  happiness  in  this  world,  but  in  that  man 
who  acts  from  a  sense  of  duty.  His  is  true 
peace,  because  it  is  '  the  peace  of  God.'  I  do 
not  say,  boys,  that  a  man,  even  when  he  does 
his  duty,  always  feels  comfortable  or  happy  at 
once  ;  but  he  will  be  more  apt  to  feel  so  than 
if  he  did  not  do  his  duty  :  and  I  do  say  that 
no  man  who  does  not  act  from  a  sense  of  duty, 
is  likely  to  feel  any  thing  like  happiness  very 
often  or  very  long." 

"  Then,  Uncle  Philip,  a  man  who  wishes  to 
be  happy  will  try  in  the  first  place  to  find  out 
what  his  duty  is." 

"  To  be  sure,  he  will ;  and  he  need  not  try 
very  long  either,  if  he  really  wishes  to  know 
it.  The  will  of  God,  boys,  is  at  the  bottom  of 
all  our  duties ;  and  an  honest  man,  yes,  or 
boy  either,  can  commonly  tell  what  God  will 
think  to  be  right  or  wrong  in  his  conduct. 
You  know  where  a  great  many  of  our  duties 
are  very  plainly  written  down  for  us  ;  do  you 
not  ?" 


140  CONVERSATIONS    ON 

"  Oh  yes,  sir ;  in  the  New  Testament,  which 
tells  us  of  what  our  Saviour  said  and  did." 

"  True.  And  what  our  Saviour  com- 
manded, boys,  God  commanded  ;  for  He  is 
God.  But  besides  this,  when  it  is  not  exactly 
written  down  in  the  New  Testament  what  we 
should  do,  still  if  we  will  think,  we  shall  very 
often  find  out  what  to  do,  from  what  is 
written." 

"Uncle  Philip,  we  almost  always  know 
what  you  mean  ;  but  now,  we  do  not  quite 
understand  you." 

"  Thank  you,  boys,  for  telling  me  that  you 
do  not  know  what  I  mean :  always  tell  any 
person  who  is  trying  to  teach  you  something, 
when  you  do  not  understand  what  is  said  to 
you.  Now  I  will  try  to  make  what  I  said 
plainer  to  you.  The  New  Testament  does 
not  say  any  thing  about  your  going  to  school ; 
does  it?" 

"  No,  sir." 

"  Who  sends  you  to  school,  boys,  and  pays 
your  teachers  for  instructing  you  ?" 

"  Our  parents,  Uncle  Philip." 

"  Yery  well.  Now  suppose  that  John  Carter 
here,  should  wish,  instead  of  going  to  school, 
to  do,  what  I  am  very  sure  he  never  did  do : 


NATURAL    HISTORY.  141 

suppose  he  should  determine  to  play  the  tru- 
ant. The  Bible  does  not  say  a  boy  shall  not 
play  the  truant,  does  it  ?" 

"  No,  Uncle  Philip." 

"  But  if  John  Carter  should  play  the  truant, 
he  would,  in  doing  so,  disobey  what  God  has 
commanded  in  the  Bible  just  as  much  as  if 
the  Bible  did  say  '  A  boy  shall  not  play  the 
truant ;'  for  the  Bible  does  say,  '  Children 
obey  your  parents?  and  he  could  not  be  a 
truant  without  disobeying  his  parents,  who 
bade  him  go  to  school." 

"  Uncle  Philip,  we  understand  you  very  well 
now." 

"  There  is  another  thing  I  wish  you  to  un- 
derstand, boys.  John  Carter,  as  you  see, 
would  not  only  disobey  his  parents,  which  is 
wicked,  but  he  would  also  commit  a  sin  against 
GOD.  That  is  always  the  thing  to  look  at  first. 
When  we  are  going  to  do  something  that  we 
are  not  very  sure  is  right,  we  should  always 
stop  to  ask  ourselves  whether  God  will  be 
pleased  with  it.  But  I  have  said  enough  to 
you  about  our  duty  for  this  time.  Now  for 
the  ants  I  promised  to  tell  you  of.  And  the 
first  sort  I  shall  mention  are  great  fighters." 


142  CONVERSATIONS    ON 

"Fighters,  Uncle  Philip!  What  do  they 
fight  about  T 

"  About  trifles,  boys,  just  as  men  do.  They 
have  terrible  wars,  and  will  dispute  with  and 
kill  each  other  for  a  few  inches  of  dirt,  when 
certainly  this  world  is  large  enough  for  them 
all.  But  animals  wiser  than  ants,  boys,  act 
in  the  same  foolish  way.  Men  sometimes 
go  to  war  and  kill  each  other  to  determine 
who  shall  have  a  river,  or  a  small  town,  or  a 
fort,  or  some  little  spot  of  ground ;  while  the 
poor  creatures  who  do  the  fighting,  and  get 
all  the  wounds,  and  lose  their  lives,  had  they 
been  let  alone,  would  have  lived  on  in  peace, 
and  never  cared  a  straw  who  had  the  mise- 
rable little  spot  they  fight  for.  But  let  me  go 
on  with  the  account  of  these  ants.  In  the 
forests,  where  the  fallow  ants  live,  you  may 
see  these  wars.  The  battle  will  be  between 
the  ants  of  different  hills,  but  they  are  all 
ants  of  the  same  sort.  Thousands  and  thou- 
sands of  them  will  meet  on  the  ground  be- 
tween their  hills,  and  the  battle  begins  by  two 
ants,  who  seize  each  other  by  the  claws  (or 
mandibles,  as  they  are  called),  and  rising  up 
on  their  hind-legs,  they  bring  their  bodies  near 


NATURAL    HISTORY.  143 

together,  and  spirt  a  sort  of  venomous  or 
poisonous  juice  upon  each  other.  These  will 
be  followed  by  thousands  of  others  on  both 
sides,  who  seize  each  other  in  the  same  way, 
and  fight  in  pairs — ant  to  ant.  Sometimes 
they  will  get  so  wedged  together  that  they 
fall  down  upon  their  sides,  but  they  do  not 
let  go  on  that  account ;  they  keep  on  fighting 
in  the  dust  until  they  rise  on  their  feet  again. 
Sometimes,  too,  a  third  ant  will  come  in,  and 
joining  whichever  of  them  belongs  to  his 
nest,  the  two  will  begin  to  drag  the  third, 
until  some  of  his  friends  come  to  his  help  ; 
and  in  this  way,  others  joining  on  both  sides, 
they  will  form  strings  of  six,  or  eight,  or  ten 
on  a  side,  pulling  with  all  their  strength. 
And  while  some  are  fighting,  you  will  see 
others  leading  off  prisoners  towards  their 
hills,  while  the  prisoners  are  trying  to  escape. 
The  field  of  battle  is  not  more,  perhaps,  than 
three  feet  square ;  multitudes  of  dead  ants 
covered  with  venom  may  be  seen  upon  it, 
and  there  is  a  very  strong  scent  which  comes 
from  it.  When  night  comes  they  go  off  to 
their  hills.  Before  dawn  the  next  day  they 
are  at  it  again  in  still  larger  numbers,  and 
they  fight  with  greater  fury  than  before,  until 


144  CONVERSATIONS   ON 

at  last  one  side  or  the  other  gives  way.  They 
are  so  busy  that  even  if  you  stand  near  them 
they  take  no  notice  of  you,  and  not  one  stops 
fighting,  or  crawls  up  your  legs." 

"  Do  all  of  them  that  belong  to  the  hill  go 
out  to  fight,  Uncle  Philip  T 

"  No ;  near  the  hills  all  is  peace  and  order, 
and  work  seems  to  be  going  on  as  usual. 
Only  on  the  side  next  to  the  battle,  crowds 
may  be  seen  running  backwards  and  forwards 
from  both  hills ;  some  as  messengers,  I  sup- 
pose, and  some  to  fight,  or  carry  back  pris- 
oners." 

"  But,  Uncle  Philip,  you  said  that  these  ants 
were  all  of  one  sort ;  how  then  do  they  know 
one  another  so  as  to  tell  which  party  each 
one  belongs  to  ?  I  should  think  that  some- 
times they  would  make  a  mistake,  and  fight 
a  friend  instead  of  an  enemy." 

"  This,  boys,  is  one  of  the  most  wonderful 
things  concerning  them.  They  are  alike  in 
form,  and  size,  and  weapons,  and  strength ; 
and  sometimes  it  happens  that  they  do  make 
a  mistake,  but  it  is  very  seldom ;  and  when 
they  do,  Mr.  Huber,  who  watched  one  of  their 
battles,  says  that  they  find  it  out  directly,  and 


NATURAL    HISTORY.  145 

caress  each  other  with  their  feelers,  and  make 
up  the  difficulty  at  once. 

"Are  you  tired,  boys,  or  do  you  wish  to 
hear  more  ?" 

"  Oh,  let  us  hear  more,  by  all  means  :  we 
are  not  at  all  tired." 

"  I  will  then  tell  you  of  another  kind  of 
ants  called  legionary  ants,  and  sometimes 
amazons;  but  I  am  sorry  to  say  that  they 
are  unlike  other  ants,  for  they  are  lazy ;  and 
yet  they  live  very  comfortably." 

"How  is  that,  Uncle  Philip?  Can  they 
be  comfortable  without  working  ?" 

"  Yes,  boys,  if  they  can  get  others  to  work 
for  them ;  and  these  have  their  work  mostly 
done  by  their  slaves." 

"  By  their  slaves  !  what  are  their  slaves,  and 
where  did  they  get  them  ?" 

"  As  to  your  first  question,  boys,  their  slaves 
are  ants  of  another  kind ;  as  to  the  second 
question — where  they  get  them — they  stole 
them  when  they  were  young." 

"  Why  you  surprise  us,  Uncle  Philip." 

"  I  dare  say  I  do.  There  are  persons  much 
older  than  you  are  who  have  never  attended 
at  all  to  the  doings  of  insects,  who  would  be 
very  much  astonished  by  the  history  of  the 


146  CONVERSATIONS    ON 

legionary  ants  ;  and  probably  would  laugh  at 
the  whole  account  as  an  idle  story ;  and  yet 
it  is  all  true,  and  those  who  have  read  and 
seen,  know  it  to  be  true  ;  and  they  know,  too, 
that  to  deny  it  shows  nothing  but  ignorance. 
However,  I  always  let  such  persons  alone.  I 
can  do  them  no  good ;  for  they  are  apt  to  be 
very  conceited,  and  will  not  be  convinced. 
And  now  for  the  legionary  ant.  This  is  a 
fighting  ant,  as  well  as  the  last  I  mentioned ; 
and  it  actually  steals  the  young  of  another 
kind,  rears  them,  and  puts  all  the  work  on 
them,  so  as  to  be  idle  itself.  This  curious 
fact  was  first  found  out  by  Mr.  Huber ;  an- 
other gentleman,  named  Latreille,  afterward 
saw  the  same  thing ;  and  now  a  great  many 
naturalists  know  it,  because,  they  have  sought 
for  and  seen  it.  The  ant  which  it  steals  is 
of  a  dark  ash  colour ;  the  legionary  is  of 
light  colour.  The  dark-coloured  ant  is 
now  called  the  negro  ant,  and  is  a  very  in- 
dustrious, peaceable  insect,  without  any  sting. 
The  legionary  is  a  strong,  brave  ant,  with  a 
sting,  but  very  lazy.  I  shall  relate  to  you 
the  account  which  Mr.  Huber  gives  of  the 
legionary.  He  was  walking  near  the  city  of 
Geneva  during  an  afternoon  in  the  summer 


NATURAL    HISTORY.  147 

of  1804,  when  he  saw  quite  an  army  of  these 
legionary  ants  crossing  the  road  ;  they  passed 
through  a  thick  hedge,  entered  a  pasture,  and 
kept  on  through  the  grass  without  separating ; 
and  Mr.  Huber  followed  them  until  he  saw 
them  come  near  a  nest  of  negro  ants.  Some 
of  these  negro  ants  seemed  to  be  guarding 
the  holes  into  their  nest ;  but  as  soon  as  they 
saw  the  legionaries,  they,  with  a  great  many 
more  from  the  inside  of  the  nest,  attacked  the 
thieves.  The  legionary  ants,  however,  were 
too  powerful  for  them,  and  after  a  short  but 
severe  fight  they  conquered  the  negroes,  who 
ran  into  the  lower  part  of  their  nests.  The 
legionaries  then  mounted  their  ant-hill,  some 
entered  it  by  the  holes  already  made,  and  others 
began  with  their  teeth  to  break  other  holes, 
so  that  all  the  army  might  get  into  the  hill. 
They  went  in  and  remained  but  a  few  min- 
utes, when  they  came  out,  each  one  having 
in  his  mouth  a  young  negro  ant,  and  off  they 
scampered,  without  any  order  among  them, 
every  one  going  his  own  way,  until  Mr. 
Huber  lost  sight  of  them.  The  next  day  he 
set  out  to  go  back  and  examine  further,  and 
on  his  way  he  found  a  large  ant-hill  full  of 
legionaries,  and  saw  an  army  start  from  it, 


148  CONVERSATIONS   ON 

which  he  followed.  They  made  the  attack 
as  before,  and  each  one  came  off  with  a  young 
negro  ant  in  his  mouth,  and  on  going  back 
to  their  hill,  from  which  Mr.  Huber  saw 
them  start,  he  had  an  opportunity  of  seeing 
them  return,  and  was  very  much  surprised  to 
find  all  around  the  nest  of  the  legionaries  a 
great  many  full-grown  negro  ants.  At  first 
he  thought  that  perhaps  they  had  gone  there 
to  fight  the  legionaries,  but  he  soon  saw  that 
instead  of  fighting,  the  negro  ants  went  out 
to  meet  the  legionaries  returning,  and  would 
caress  them,  and  give  them  food,  and  finally 
take  the  young  negro  ants  and  carry  them 
within  the  nest." 

"But,  Uncle  Philip,  why  do  the  legionaries 
always  take  the  young  ones  ?" 

"  Because,  boys,  they  know,  I  suppose,  that 
the  old  ants  would  never  be  satisfied  to  re- 
move from  their  homes  ;  and  therefore  they 
take  the  young.  These  legionaries  could  work 
if  they  would,  I  think,  but  they  depend  upon 
the  negro  ants  for  house  and  home,  and  food 
too  ;  and  nothing  can  be  more  faithful  and 
affectionate  than  these  poor  slaves  are.  To 
try  them,  Mr.  Huber  took  thirty  of  the  lesfion- 
aries,  and  put  them  with  some  of  the  larvse, 


NATURAL    HISTORY.  149 

or  grubs  of  their  own  young,  into  a  glass  box 
with  a  thick  coat  of  earth  at  the  bottom  of  it, 
and  he  put  honey  also  in  the  box,  that  they 
might  not  want  food.  At  first  the  legionaries 
paid  a  little  attention  to  their  young  ;  but  they 
soon  stopped  ;  and  they  neither  tried  to  make 
a  house,  nor  took  any  food,  so  that  in  two  days 
half  of  them  died.  Mr.  Huber  then  put  in 
one  negro  ant,  and  this  little  creature  set  to 
work  alone,  made  a  chamber  of  the  earth  in 
the  box,  gathered  the  young  together,  fed  the 
old,  and  put  every  thing  into  complete  order. 

"  At  another  time  Mr.  Huber  broke  one  of 
the  ant-hills  of  these  legionaries,  to  see  how 
they  would  act,  and  in  doing  it,  he,  of  course, 
altered  their  galleries  and  chambers.  The  le- 
gionaries seemed  to  be  lost,  and  went  wander- 
ing about,  without  knowing  where  to  go  ;  but 
the  negro  ants  appeared  to  understand  very 
well  where  they  were :  they  could  find  such 
of  the  galleries  as  were  not  broken,  and  would 
take  up  the  legionaries  in  their  mouths  and 
carry  them  into  them.  If  the  negro  some- 
times seemed  for  a  short  time  to  be  lost,  and 
not  to  know  where  it  was,  it  laid  down  its 
master,  ran  round  and  examined  until  it  knew, 
and  then  would  come  back,  and  pick  up  the 

N2 


150  CONVERSATIONS    ON 

legionary  ant,  and  carry  it  off.  In  one  case 
Mr.  Huber  saw  that  the  entrance  to  a  gallery 
was  stopped  up  by  a  small  lump  of  earth  ;  the 
negro  ant  laid  his  master  down,  took  away 
the  piece  of  earth,  and  then  carried  him  in." 

"  Why,  these  poor  negro  ants  are  sensible 
as  well  as  faithful,  Uncle  Philip." 

"  Yes,  boys,  they  are  so  ;  and  I  think  it  is 
likely  that  both  kinds  depend  in  some  way 
upon  each  other,  but  we  have  not  yet  found 
all  about  it.  I  expect  that  in  some  things  the 
legionary  does  for  the  negro  ant  what  it  could 
not  do  for  itself.  God  has  made  them  neces- 
sary to  each  other,  and  this  is  the  reason  they 
live  together  so  kindly. 

"  But  I  think  it  is  time  now  to  leave  the 
ants,  and  go  back  to  our  business  of  seeking 
for  something  like  man's  inventions  and  tools 
among  the  lower  animals.  Perhaps  hereafter 
I  may  tell  you  more  about  ants ;  but  at  present 
I  must  bid  you  good  morning." 

"  Good  morning,  Uncle  Philip." 


NATURAL    HISTORY.  151 


CONVERSATION  XIII. 

Uncle  Philip  and  the  Boys  make  a  Voyage, 
and  he  tells  them  of  an  Animal  that  makes 
itself  into  a  Ship  ;  and  of  an  Insect  that 
builds  a  Boat,  and  floats  about  in  a  Canoe; 
and  of  another  that  pumps  Water,  and 
wears  a  Mask  ;  and  of  a  Spider  that  builds 
a  Raft,  and  floats  upon  it. 

"  WELL,  boys,  I  have  a  most  delightful  plan 
for  us  to-day." 

"  What  is  it,  what  is  it,  Uncle  Philip  ?" 

"  Why,  I  have  a  little  voyage  to  make,  and 
my  boat  is  on  the  river  just  above  the  mill.  I 
have  the  men  there  to  row  it,  and  every  thing 
is  ready." 

"  Oh  !  dear  Uncle  Philip,  this  is  charming  ! 
we  shall  be  so  happy !  But — but — " 

"  But  what,  boys  T 

"  Why,  Uncle  Philip,  we  have  not  asked 
leave  at  home.  Now  our  parents  are  very 
happy  to  have  us  visit  you,  and  say  that  they 
are  very  much  obliged  to  you  for  telling  us  so 


152  CONVERSATIONS    ON 

many  things ;  but  they  have  told  us,  too,  never 
to  get  into  a  boat  without  asking  their  per- 
mission first.  Uncle  Philip,  we  are  sure  they 
will  let  us  go,  if  they  know  that  you  are  going ; 
only  let  us  run  home  and  ask  them." 

"  My  dear  boys,  I  am  very  much  pleased 
with  your  conduct ;  and,  what  is  far  better, 
my  children,  Gor>  is  pleased;  for  he  has 
commanded  you  to  honour  your  father  and 
mother  :  but  you  need  not  go  home  to  ask 
permission,  for  you  may  depend  upon  it  I 
would  not  take  one  of  you  upon  the  water 
without  the  consent  of  your  parents :  so  I 
went  yesterday,  while  you  were  all  at  school, 
and  have  got  permission  from  your  friends 
for  every  one  of  you  to  go — only  I  asked 
them  to  tell  you  nothing  about  it." 

"Oh  dear,  Uncle  Philip,  you  are  so  very, 
very  good:  thank  you,  thank  you,  a  thou- 
sand times  over." 

"  Once  is  enough,  boys.  There  is  but  one 
Being  who  deserves  a  thousand  thanks,  and 
he,  in  truth,  deserves  a  great  many  more 
than  a  thousand ;  but  I  fear  that  from  a  great 
many  he  is  just  the  Being  who  gets  the  few- 
est,— it  is  our  Heavenly  Father :  but  come 
on,  boys,  let  us  be  going  to  the  boat.  We 


NATURAL   HISTORY.  153 

shall  soon  reach  her.  Ah,  yonder  she  is ;  I 
see  her  through  the  trees." 

*  Oh,  what  a  beauty  she  is,  Uncle  Philip, 
with  her  green  sides  and  white  belt  near 
the  top.  We  shall  have  a  charming  voyage." 

"Come,  then  ;  get  in,  my  little  sailors,  and 
seat  yourselves  yonder  in  the  stern.  Now  we 
are  all  ready ;  shove  off,  men,  and  use  your 
oars.  I  will  take  care  of  the  helm." 

"Oh,  Uncle  Philip,  how  smoothly  we  go 
along !  this  is  charming.  Is  this  the  way  a 
ship  goes,  Uncle  Philip  ?" 

"  A  ship  floats,  boys,  just  as  the  boat  does  ; 
but  she  is  not  rowed  with  oars  ;  she  has  sails, 
and  the  wind  blowing  upon  them  sends  her 
along." 

"  Uncle  Philip,  there  are  no  ships  among 
animals,  are  there  ?" 

"  Oh  no  ;  but  there  is  a  very  curious  little 
animal  which  lives  in  the  water,  and  man- 
ages to  rig  out  something  li've  a  ship,  and  to 
sail." 

"  What  is  it,  Uncle  Philip  ?  pray  let  us  hear 
of  it." 

**  it  is  called  the  nautilus,  and  I  saw  a  great 
many  of  them  in  the  Mediterranean  sea.  The 
shell  is  nearly  round,  and  six  or  eight  inches 


154  CONVERSATIONS    ON 

across,  not  much  thicker  than  paper,  and  of 
a  whitish  colour :  it  has,  too,  a  keel  or  ridge 
upon  each  side.  When  it  wishes  to  sail,  it 
stretches  upwards  two  of  its  legs :  these  have 
a  very  thin  skin  at  the  end,  which  the  nau- 
tilus spreads  out  for  sails,  and  the  other  legs 
hang  over  on  each  side  of  the  shell  for  oars 
or  rudders.  When  the  sea  is  calm,  a  great 
many  of  them  may  be  seen  playing  about ; 
but  as  soon  as  a  storm  arises,  or  they  are  dis- 
turbed, they  take  in  their  sails  and  sink  to 
the  bottom.  But,  boys,  the  most  curious  boat 
that  I  know,  made  by  one  of  the  dumb  crea- 
tures, is  the  work  of  the  little  insect  that 
played  the  doctor  the  other  day,  and  stuck 
his  lancet  into  us.  Do  you  remember  what 
insect  that  was  ?" 

"  Oh  yes,  very  well,  Uncle  Philip,  it  was  the 
gnat." 

"  True,  boys,  it  was  the  gnat,  which  is  an 
insect  that  spends  the  first  part  of  its  life  in 
the  water,  and  the  latter  part  in  the  air. 
The  grub  of  the  gnat  lives  in  water,  and  I 
will  give  you  the  whole  history  of  this  cu- 
rious insect.  We  will  first  speak  of  the  eggs, 
for  out  of  these  it  is  that  the  boat  is  made. 
In  order  to  see  this  boat  made,  you  must  go 


NATURAL    HISTORY.  155 

early  in  the  morning,  between  five  and  six 
o'clock,  to  a  bucket,  or  pond  of  stagnant 
water,  where  gnats  are  to  be  found :  if  you 
go  later  you  will  not  see  it.  The  gnat's  eggs 
are  shaped  something  like  a  pocket  powder- 
flask,  and  it  is  by  putting  a  great  many  of 
these  together  that  she  makes  the  boat.  To 
do  this,  the  mother  gnat  stands  by  her  fore- 
legs upon  the  side  of  the  bucket,  or  on  a 
leaf  or  stick  in  the  pond,  and  her  body  is  on 
a  level  with  the  water,  and  rests  upon  it,  ex- 
cept the  last  ring  of  her  tail,  which  she  raises 
a  little.  She  then  crosses  her  two  hind-legs 
in  the  shape  of  the  letter  X,  and  begins  to 
put  her  eggs  in  that  part  of  the  X  nearest 
to  her  body.  So  she  brings  her  legs,  crossed 
in  this  way,  near  to  her  body,  and  puts  an 
egg  in  the  angle,  covered  with  a  kind  of  glue, 
which  will  make  the  eggs  stick  together.  On 
each  side  of  the  first  egg  she  puts  another  in 
this  shape  #  *  #,  and  here  is  a  drawing  of  the 
insect  at  this  part  of  her  work. 


A  Gnat  making  her  Boat  of  Eggs. 


156  CONVERSATIONS    ON 

"  She  then  goes  on  adding  eggs,  which  are 
all  put  in  the  water  with  their  ends  down- 
wards, until  she  has  got  her  boat  half-finished ; 
she  then  uncrosses  her  legs,  and  just  keeps 
one  on  each  side  of  the  boat  as  she  goes  on, 
until  she  has  completed  it." 

"  And  how  many  eggs,  Uncle  Philip,  will 
she  put  together  in  this  way  ?" 

"  From  two  hundred  and  fifty  to  three  hun- 
dred and  fifty,  and  when  all  are  laid  they 
make  quite  a  good  boat,  sharp,  and  raised  at 
both  ends,  and  floating  on  the  water.  Then 
the  mother  gnat  leaves  it.  Here  is  a  picture 
of  one  of  these  boats. 


"  Now  I  will  tell  you  of  what  becomes  of 
the  young  ones  in  these  eggs.  They  come 
out  of  the  lower  part  of  the  egg,  and  com- 
monly swim,  with  their  heads  downward, 
near  to  the  top  of  the  water." 

"With  their  heads  downward,  Uncle  Philip  ! 
what  is  that  for  T 

"  Why,  they  have  a  tube  at  the  end  of  their 


NATURAL    HISTORY. 


157 


bodies,  near  the  tail,  through  which  they 
breathe  ;  and  that  part  must,  you  know,  be  at 
the  top  to  get  air.  Besides  this,  its  tail  and 
its  breathing  tube  both  end  in  a  sort  of  fun- 
nel, made  up  of  hairs  placed  somewhat  in  the 
form  of  a  star,  and  covered  with  oil,  so  as  to 
keep  off  water,  and  these  buoy  or  float  it  up. 
When  it  wishes  to  sink,  it  just  folds  up  its 
funnels,  and  shuts  up  in  them  a  little  bubble 
of  air,  which  it  breathes  under  the  water ; 
arid  when  it  wishes  to  rise,  it  opens  its  funnels, 
and  they  float  it  to  the  top  again.  Here  is  a 
drawing  which  will  show  it  to  you. 


Larva  of  the  common  Gnat  floating  in  water,  greatly  magnified,  a  a, 
the  body  and  head  of  the  larva ;  &,  the  respiratory  apparatus,  situated  in 
the  tail ;  c,  the  larva,  not  magnified. 

0 


158  CONVERSATIONS   ON 

"  They  are  hatched  in  a  few  days,  and  then 
the  boat  of  empty  eggs  floats  about  until  it  is 
destroyed  by  the  weather.  And  to  show  you 
how  good  a  boat  it  is,  I  will  tell  you  what  a 
gentleman  did  to  prove  it.  Mr.  Kirby,  who  is 
very  fond  of  natural  history,  and  has  written 
a  great  deal  about  insects,  says  that  he  put 
half  a  dozen  of  these  gnat-boats  in  a  tumbler 
half  full  of  water,  and  then  poured  upon 
them  a  stream  from  the  mouth  of  a  quart 
bottle,  held  up  a  foot  above  them,  and  he  could 
not  sink  them.  More  than  that,  the  water 
would  not  stay  in  them.  If  you  push  one  to 
the  bottom  with  your  ringer,  it  will  come 
up  to  the  top  directly,  and  you  cannot  see  any 
water  in  it." 

"  Why,  this  is  a  noble  boat,  Uncle  Philip, 
that  will  never  sink." 

"  True,  boys  ;  but  listen,  and  you  will  find 
that  before  it  can  use  its  wings  the  gnat  has 
to  sail  in  another  boat  still,  much  more  dan- 
gerous than  this  is.  After  it  is  hatched,  it  has 
to  pass  through  several  shapes  before  it  gets 
to  be  such  an  insect  as  you  see.  Here  is  a 
picture  which  will  show  you  its  different 
shapes. 


NATURAL    HISTORY.  159 


"  The  first  is  the  same  which  you  saw  in 
the  last  picture,  only  in  this  drawing  the  head 
is  uppermost.  But  its  last  change,  when  it 
becomes  an  insect  with  wings,  is  the  most 
curious  part  of  the  whole.  When  it  is  about 
to  get  its  wings,  and  become  a  perfect  gnat,  it 
raises  its  shoulders  just  above  the  top  of  the 
water,  and  its  skin  cracks,  so  that  the  head  of 
the  gnat  immediately  comes  through.  The 
shoulders  come  next,  and  make  the  crack 
larger  ;  but  it  has  yet  all  its  body  to  get  out, 
and  its  legs  and  wings  are  as  yet  all  shut  up 
in  its  case.  Now  is  the  time  of  danger  for 
the  gnat.  It  raises  itself  nearly  straight  out 
of  the  crack,  and  by  wriggling  works  its  body 
along :  and  if  a  particle  of  water  should  get 
upon  the  case,  or  touch  its  wings,  it  would  be 
overset,  and  must  perish.  Thousands  and 
thousands  die  in  this  way.  It  is  so  very 


160  CONVERSATIONS    ON 

light,  too,  that  the  wind  will  drive  it  about,  and 
whirl  it  round  and  round  upon  the  top  of  the 
water  ;  and  when  it  is  almost  out,  the  insect 
is  tossed  about  in  a  canoe  or  boat  of  the  very 
weakest  sort,  while  its  body  is  a  mast,  which 
appears  much  too  large  for  so  small  a  boat. 
At  last  it  gets  far  enough  out  of  the  case  to 
stretch  its  fore-legs,  and  put  them  down 
upon  the  water  (which  will  bear  a  gnat's 
weight),  and  then  it  is  safe;  it  spreads  its 
wings,  and  soon  leaves  the  little  boat  which 
was  so  dangerous.  Here  is  a  picture  of  the 
gnat  getting  out  of  its  case." 


"  Well,  Uncle  Philip,  all  this  is  very  strange ; 
we  never  knew  before  that  the  gnat  was  a 
sailor." 

"  I  suppose  that  you  did  not,  boys.  But  as 
we  are  talking  of  boats,  pray  can  you  think  of 
any  way  of  making  a  boat  move  through  water 
without  oars,  or  paddles,  or  sails,  or  something 
to  pull  it  along?" 


NATURAL   HISTORY.  161 

"No  indeed. — Oh   yes,  Uncle   Philip,  by 
steam." 

"Ah,  I  mentioned  paddles,  boys,  and  a 
steamboat  is  forced  along  by  them." 
"  No ;  Uncle  Philip,  we  do  not  know." 
"  Well,  I  will  tell  you  then  of  another  way 
in  which  I  have  no  doubt  a  boat  might  be 
made  to  move.  If  there  were  any  contrivance 
by  which  a  large  quantity  of  water  could  be 
kept  in  the  boat,  and  if  this  water  were  forced 
out  of  tubes  or  holes  at  one  end  very  violently, 
it  would  push  against  the  water  in  which  the 
boat  was  floating,  and  force  her  along.  Some 
years  ago  a  plan  was  thought  of  to  make  a 
steam  engine  throw  the  water  out  of  the  stern 
of  the  boat,  and  thus  to  force  her  along ;  and 
before  that,  Dr.  Franklin  tried  some  schemes 
for  the  same  purpose,  but  they  never  suc- 
ceeded. Now  there  is  an  insect  which  adopts 
precisely  this  plan,  and  perhaps  some  of  those 
who  thought  of  it  got  the  notion  from  the 
insect." 

"What  insect  is  it,  uncle  Philip?" 
"  It  is  the  grub  of  the  dragon-fly.     If  you 
catch  one  of  these  grubs  and  put  it  into  a 
saucer  of  water  with  some  of  the  dead  leaves 
or  sticks  it  had  for  a  covering,  you  will  see 
o2 


162  CONVERSATIONS    ON 

these  leaves  or  sticks  floating  towards  the  tail 
of  the  grub,  and  afterward  driven  off  again. 
This  is  because  the  insect  is  pumping  in 
water,  and  then  throwing  it  out.  If  you  take 
one  of  them  out  of  the  water,  and  hold  it  with 
its  head  down,  and  let  a  drop  of  water  fall 
upon  its  tail,  it  instantly  sucks  it  in,  and  you 
can  see  it  grow  larger  ;  and  when  it  throws  it 
out  again  it  becomes  smaller." 

"But,  Uncle  Philip,  how  can  you  see  it 
suck  the  water  in  T 

"Very  easily,  boys.  When  it  is  in  the 
water,  if  you  will  colour  some  other  water 
with  indigo,  or  ink,  or  any  thing  else,  and 
then  hold  a  glass  tube  just  over  the  tail  of 
the  insect,  and  very  carefully  put  some  of  the 
coloured  water  into  the  tube,  you  will  soon  see 
the  grub  spirt  out  a  stream  of  it  to  the  dis- 
tance of  several  inches :  or  if  you  will  put  the 
insect  in  a  saucer  of  coloured  water,  and  then 
suddenly  move  it,  and  put  it  into  one  of  clean 
water,  you  will  see  it  spirt  out  the  coloured 
stream  plainer  still." 

"  Why,  Uncle  Philip,  it  must  have  a  pump 
inside  of  it." 

"It  has,  boys,  something  very  like  one. 
This  stream  of  water  is  forced  out  to  help 


NATURAL    HISTORY.  163 

the  insect  along ;  for  though  it  has  six  feet,  it 
uses  them  very  little  except  for  catching  food. 
It  drives  the  water  out  so  strongly  against 
the  still  water  behind  it,  that  it  sends  it  for- 
ward, with  a  dart,  very  rapidly.  Here  are 
two  pictures ;  one  shows  the  pump  open,  and 
the  other  shows  it  shut." 


Uncle  Philip,  is  there  any  thing  else  cu- 
rious about  this  insect  ?" 

"There  is,  boys,  something  well  worth 
attention ;  did  you  ever  see  a  mask  ?" 

"  Do  you  mean,  Uncle  Philip,  a  face  made 
of  pasteboard,  very  frightful  commonly,  which 
you  can  wear  over  your  own  face  ?" 

"  That  is  a  mask,  boys ;  but  so  is  any  thing 
which  is  made  to  wear  over  the  face,  and  hide 
it.  Now  this  little  insect  has  a  mask,  not 
made  like  a  man's  face,  but  which  completely 
hides  its  mouth,  and  it  is  exceedingly  curious." 

"  How  is  it  made,  Uncle  Philip  ?" 

K  Why,  boys,  I  am  not  sure  that  I  can  tell 


164  CONVERSATIONS   ON 

you,  so  that  you  will  understand  me ;  but  I 
will  try.  Suppose  your  under-lip  was  horn, 
instead  of  being  flesh ;  and  suppose  it  hung 
straight  down  until  it  reached  the  bottom  of 
your  chin,  so  as  to  cover  the  whole  of  it,  and 
that  at  the  bottom  there  was  a  large  three- 
sided  plate  which  was  hollowed  out,  and  fast- 
ened by  a  joint  or  hinge  to  the  bottom  of  your 
long  lip,  so  that  it  could  turn  up  on  the  hinge 
and  cover  your  face  as  high  up  as  your  nose, 
and  hide  your  long  lip  and  your  mouth  and 
part  of  your  cheeks  :  suppose,  too,  that  at  the 
upper  end  of  this  long  face-cover  there  were 
two  other  pieces,  so  broad  that  they  would 
cover  all  your  nose  and  your  temples,  and 
could  open  sidewise  like  jaws,  and  show  your 
nose  and  mouth,  so  that  when  they  were 
opened  they  would  appear  like  the  blinders  to  a 
horse's  bridle ;  and  then  suppose  that  these 
jaws,  upon  their  inner  edges,  were  cut  into  a 
great  many  sharp  teeth,  which  fitted  into  each 
other,  and  you  will  have  some  notion  of  this 
curious  mask.  Do  you  think  you  understand 
me?" 

"  Why,  pretty  well,  Uncle  Philip,  we  think." 

"  Well,  boys,  here  are  some  pictures,  and 

with  their  help  I  hope  what  I  have  been  say- 


NATURAL    HISTORY.  165 

ing  will  be  plain  enough.  In  one  picture  the 
mask  is  shut ;  and  in  the  other,  one  of  the  jaws, 
like  a  blinder  to  a  bridle,  is  open.  While  the 


Mask  of  the  Dragon-fly,  shut  and  open. 

insect  is  at  rest,  it  keeps  the  mask  over  its 
face  ;  when  it  wishes  to  use  it,  it  unfolds  it, 
and  catches  its  food,  and  holds  it  to  its  mouth. 
A'  gentleman  once  saw  one  of  them  holding 
and  eating  a  large  tadpole." 

"  Uncle  Philip,  this  mask  is  any  thing  but 
handsome." 

"  Very  true ;  but  you  know  we  agreed  when 
we  were  talking  about  the  bats  to  look  at  ani- 
mals even  if  they  were  not  handsome.  And 
there  is  your  poor  little  ugly  insect  that  you 
thought  it  right  to  kill,  the  spider ;  did  you 
know  that  the  spider  was  a  sailor,  too  ?" 

"  No,  indeed,  Uncle  Philip  !  Pray  tell  us 
of  it,  will  you  ?" 

"  Yes  ;  but  wait  a  little,  until  we  bring  the 
boat's  head  right,  for  we  are  near  the  landing- 
place.  So — now,  boys,  I  am  ready.  There 
is  a  very  large  spider,  about  which  not  much 


166  CONVERSATIONS   ON 

is  yet  known,  which  actually  builds  a  raft, 
for  the  purpose  of  getting  its  food  more  easily. 
You  may  see  it  sailing  about  upon  the  water, 
on  a  ball  of  weeds  about  three  inches  across, 
which  is  held  together  probably  by  small  silk 
cords  spun  from  itself;  and  the  moment  it 
sees  an  insect  drowning,  it  leaves  the  raft,  gets 
the  insect,  and  then  returns  to  eat  it  at  leisure. 
If  you  frighten  it,  or  it  thinks  danger  is  near, 
in  an  instant  it  is  under  the  raft  out  of  sight." 

"  Ah,  this  is  a  cunning  spider,  Uncle  Phi- 
lip." 

"  Not  half  so  cunning,  boys,  as  the  one  we 
talked  of  which  built  a  door  to  its  house. 
But  here  we  are  at  land.  Jump  ashore,  my 
lads,  and  give  my  respects  to  your  fathers  and 
mothers,  when  you  get  home." 

"  We  will.     Good  day,  Uncle  Philip." 

"  Good  day,  boys.  I  shall  be  glad  to  sea 
you  next  Saturday." 


NATURAL    HISTORY.  167 

at-.  FT  67*#!    ray  'f#m  '   ftlfc. 

CONVERSATION  XIV. 

Uncle  Philip  tells  the  Boys  about  an  Insect 
with  Tweezers,  and  another  with  Pincers  ; 
and  shows  them  how  a  Fly's  Foot  is  made, 
so  as  to  stick  to  the  Wall. 

"  How  do  you  do,  Uncle  Philip,  this  morn- 
ing?" 

"  Very  well,  boys,  I  thank  you.  You  are  all 
well,  I  suppose,  or  I  should  not  see  you  here." 

"  Yes,  we  are  all  well,  thank  you,  Uncle 
Philip.  But  one  of  us  would  be  very  glad  to 
have  your  help." 

"  Why,  what  is  the  matter  ?" 

"  Charles  Walker  has  run  a  splinter  into  his 
hand,  and  he  wishes  you  to  get  it  out  for  him." 

"  Oh,  certainly,  I  will  do  that,  if  I  can.     Let 

me  see  :  but  stay — I  must  first  put  on  my 

spectacles.     Ah,  now  I  see  it ;  I  can  get  it  out, 

but  I  must  take  my  tweezers  to  it.     There,  it 

-  is  out." 

"  Uncle  Philip,  those  tweezers  are  very 
useful.  If  you  had  not  had  them,  you  could 
not  have  taken  hold  of  the  splinter  with  von* 


168  CONVERSATIONS    ON 

fingers ;  and  what  would  you  have  done 
then  ?" 

"  Tried  to  cut  it  out  with  the  point  of  my 
penknife  ;  but  the  tweezers  are  better  for  such 
work  ;  and  that  reminds  me,  boys,  to  tell  you 
that  there  are  insects  with  tweezers." 

"  Why,  what  tool  is  it  that  you  cannot  find 
among  them,  Uncle  Philip  ?  It  really  seems 
as  if  you  found  almost  every  kind  among  the 
lower  animals." 

"  Oh,  no — no,  boys.  There  are  a  great 
many  which  I  cannot  find  ;  but  there  are  sev- 
eral, too,  which,  as  you  know,  we  have  dis- 
covered." 

"  And,  Uncle  Philip,  we  suppose  that  men 
learned  to  make  their  tools  and  work  at  many 
of  their  trades  from  these  dumb  creatures." 

"  Stay,  boys — I  never  said  that,  because  I 
think  that  it  is  not  true.  We  know  that  in 
some  things  men  did  not  learn  from  the  in- 
sects, though  they  might  have  done  so. 
There  is  paper,  for  instance.  How  could  men 
learn  to  make  it  from  the  wasps,  when  it  was 
a  thing  in  common  use  a  long  time  before  Mr. 
Reaumur,  of  whom  I  told  you,  found  out  how 
the  wasp  made  it  ?  So,  too,  with  a  great  many 
tools ;  men  invented  them,  and  afterward, 
perhaps,  it  was  found  out  that  insects  had  in- 


NATURAL    HISTORY.  169 

struments  like  them  :  and  at  other  times  the 
insects  did  show  men  how  to  make  some 
things.  I  will  tell  you  of  one  which  I  think 
of  just  now.  The  city  of  London,  in  Eng- 
land, is  on  the  river  Thames.  Some  time 
since  a  plan  was  adopted  to  make  what  is 
called  a  tunnel  under  the  river.  This  tunnel 
is  a  road  dug  out  of  the  earth,  under  the  bot- 
tom of  the  river,  across  it ;  and  of  course  to 
keep  the  water  from  pressing  in  the  earth  as 
fast  as  it  was  hollowed  out,  it  was  propped  up 
by  walls  built  on  each  side,  with  a  very  strong 
arch  at  the  top.  The  work  has  now  stopped ; 
but  about  half  of  it  was  made.  In  building 
this  arched  road  under  the  water,  the  work- 
men used  what  they  called  a  shield,  to  keep 
the  water  from  coming  through  upon  them  : 
and  the  gentleman  who  invented  it,  says  that 
he  first  thought  of  it,  from  examining  a  little 
animal  named  Taret,  which  will  bore  holes  in 
large  pieces  of  timber  under  the  water.  This 
little  animal  has  upon  its  head  a  kind  of 
shield,  by  which  it  keeps  off  the  force  of  the 
water,  and  works  without  being  disturbed. 
So  here  was  a  case  in  which  the  insect  taught 
the  man." 

"  Uncle  Philip,  that  gentleman  was  a  sensi- 


170  CONVERSATIONS    ON 

ble  man,  in  the  first  place  to  watch  the  Taret 
and  examine  its  head,  and  in  the  next  place 
not  to  be  too  proud  to  learn  from  it.  I  expect 
he  was  a  naturalist ;  was  he,  Uncle  Philip  ?" 

"  I  do  not  know,  boys  ;  but  I  should  think 
his  discovery  of  the  shield  would  make  him 
an  attentive  observer,  if  he  was  riot  so  before." 

"  Now,  Uncle  Philip,  will  you  tell  us  of  the 
tweezers  ?" 

"Very  willingly,  boys.  This  instrument 
or  tool  belongs  to  the  moths  which  you  see 
flying  about  at  times.  The  tails  are  covered 
with  a  down,  which  grows  in  the  form  of  a 
thick  brush  or  tuft,  and  has  a  shining  silky 
gloss,  different  in  colour  from  the  short  hair 
upon  the  rest  of  the  body.  The  moth  pulls 
off  this  hair  to  cover  its  eggs,  and  the  twee- 
zers are  used  for  that  purpose.  Here  is  a  pic- 
ture of  the  moths." 


Females  of  the  brown  and  gold-tailed  Moths,  showing  the  bunch 
of  down  on  the  tails. 


NATURAL    HISTORY.  171 

"  Uncle  Philip,  you  said  that  the  moth  pulled 
this  hair  off  to  cover  its  eggs ;  are  they  easily 
frozen  V 

"  Not  very  easily,  boys ;  but  you  are  mis- 
taken in  thinking  that  the  moth  covers  these 
eggs  to  keep  off  the  cold;  for  as  she  lays 
them  in  July  and  August,  and  covers  them  at 
that  time,  it  cannot  be  to  keep  off  the  cold." 
"  What  is  it  for,  then,  Uncle  Philip  ?" 
"  To  keep  off  the  summer  heat,  boys." 
"  Why,  Uncle  Philip !  who  ever  heard  of 
covering  a  thing  up  in  hair  or  wool  to  keep 
off  heat?" 

"  I  have  heard  of  it,  and  seen  it  too,  boys. 
It  may  seem  strange,  but  it  is  true,  that  down 
and  wool,  and  such  things,  are  nearly  as  good 
to  protect  an  animal  from  very  great  outward 
heat  as  they  are  to  keep  off  very  severe  cold. 
When  I  was  at  Naples,  in  Italy,  it  was  sum- 
mer;— the  climate  is  a  very  warm  one. — 
The  country  people  were  in  the  habit  of  bring- 
ing snow  into  the  city  from  Mount  Vesuvius, 
and  every  morning  I  could  see  them  coming 
in  with  their  snow,  which  they  sell  to  the 
rich  to  use  for  cooling  things  :  and  they  kept 
it  from  melting  with  straw  and  wool.  And 
in  our  own  country,  especially  at  the  south,  it 


172  CONVERSATIONS    ON 

is  very  common  when  a  large  lump  of  ice  is 
brought  to  the  house  to  be  used  through  the 
day  in  midsummer,  to  wrap  it  up  in  a  thick 
blanket  until  it  is  wanted. 

"  But  I  have  not  yet  told  you  of  the  twee- 
zers. The  moth  has  no  jaws,  like  bees  and 
wasps,  so  that  it  cannot  pull  off  these  hairs 
as  the  bee  would ;  but,  as  I  told  you,  it  per- 
forms the  work  with  its  tweezers,  which  are 
placed  in  its  tail,  and  are  like  the  points  of  a 
pair  of  sugar-tongs.  The  insects,  too,  will 
use  them  very  rapidly,  and  pull  off  a  little  of 
the  down,  spread  the  egg  upon  it,  and  then 
cover  it  with  more  down,  and  smooth  it  very 
neatly.  Here  are  pictures  of  these  tweezers." 


Tweezers  of  the  brown  and  gold-tailed  Moths,  magnified. 

"  This  is  a  curious  instrument  for  the  insect 
to  have,  Uncle  Philip." 

"  True,  boys,  but  a  very  useful  one.  I  will 
tell  you,  however,  of  another  strange  thing 
concerning  moths  with  their  tweezers ;  I 


NATURAL    HISTORY.  173 

mean  the  way  in  which  they  will  sometimes 
place  their  eggs.  The  kind  of  moth  that  does 
this  work  is  not  exactly  known,  but  natural- 
ists think  that  the  eggs  are  moth's  eggs,  be- 
cause they  are  covered  with  the  down,  exactly 
like  those  which  are  known  to  be  moth's  eggs. 
These  eggs  are  twisted  round  a  branch,  like 
the  thread  of  a  screw,  or  like  the  curled  end 
of  a  corkscrew  put  over  a  small  stick.  Here 
is  a  picture  of  some  of  these  eggs." 


Spiral  group  of  Eggs  of  an  unknown  Moth. 

"  Ah,  this  is  wonderful  work  indeed  for  a 
moth,  Uncle  Philip." 

"  As  you  seem  to  like  this,  boys,  I  will  just 
mention  to  you  that  there  is  another  moth, 
called  the  Jackey-moth,  which  winds  its  eggs 
also  around  a  branch.  They  are  hard,  how- 
ever, and  not  covered  with  any  down,  and  are 
put  on  in  the  strongest  possible  way.  If  men 
wish  to  make  an  arch  of  stone,  you  know  that 
the  stones  will  be  more  narrow  at  the  bottom 
p2 


174 


CONVERSATIONS    0-N 


than  at  the  top,  so  that  the  bottom  of  the  arch 
may  make  a  small  circle,  and  the  top  a  larger 
one :  thus — 


A 

o 


A,  Key-stone  of  an  arch;  B,  Arch  completed. 

Now  the  moth  goes  on  this  principle.  Its  eggs 
are  shaped  like  the  bowl  of  a  wine-glass,  and 
the  smaller  end  is  put  next  to  the  branch. 
They  are  all  glued  together,  too,  with  a  kind 
of  gum,  which  will  not  dissolve  or  melt  in 
water;  so  that  the  rain  cannot  injure  them. 
Here  is  a  picture  of  these  eggs. 


Eggs  of  the  Lackey-moth,  wound  spirally  round  a  twig  of  hawthorn ; 
natural  size,  and  magnified. 

"  There  is  another  insect,  boys,  which  has 
something  like  tweezers  ;  though  I  think  they 
resemble  pincers  most." 


NATURAL    HISTORY.  175 

"  What  is  it,  Uncle  Philip  ?" 

"  The  boys  call  it  father  long-legs,  and  I 
dare  say  you  have  often  seen  it.  It  is  the 
crane-fly,  and  its  pincers  are  used  for  putting 
its  egg  in  the  hole  it  has  made  for  it." 

"  Where  does  it  put  its  eggs,  Uncle  Philip  ?" 

"  In  the  earth,  boys ;  and  to  enable  the  in- 
sect to  do  this,  the  female  has  the  pincers  I 
spoke  of:  they  are  made  of  something  like 
horn,  and  are  sharp  at  the  point.  With  these 
she  first  bores  a  hole  in  the  ground,  and  then 
puts  the  egg  in.  The  egg  is  like  a  grain  of 
gunpowder,  and  she  puts  herself  in  a  very 
curious  posture  to  bore  the  hole.  Here, 
boys,  you  may  see  a  picture  of  the  pincers  as 
they  appear  through  a  microscope,  for  they 


nftd  Eggs  of  the  Crane-fly. 


176 


CONVERSATIONS    ON 


are  not  near  as  large  as  the  picture.     And 
here  is  a  drawing  of  one  boring." 


Crane-fly  ovipositing,  and  the  larva  beneath,  in  the  earth,  feeding 
upon  grass  roots. 

"  What  good  pincers  those  are,  Uncle 
Philip :  but  will  you  tell  us  one  thing  which 
we  wish  to  know  ?  Talking  about  the  crane- 


NATURAL    HISTORY.  177 

fly  has  put  me  in  mind  of  it :  the  other  day 
we  were  sitting  together  in  school,  and  the 
wall  over  our  heads  was  covered  with  com- 
mon flies ;  and  when  we  came  out,  we  were 
talking  about  the  way  in  which  the  fly  stuck 
to  the  wall  without  falling  down  ;  and  as  we 
could  not  tell  what  kept  him  up,  we  agreed 
to  ask  you  about  it." 

"  I  will  tell  you,  boys,  very  willingly.  I 
do  not  wonder  that  you  were  unable  to  tell  how 
the  fly  stuck  to  the  wall ;  for  you  never  tried  to 
find  out,  and  therefore  could  only  guess  at  it." 

"  And  that  is  not  a  good  way  to  find  out 
any  thing,  Uncle  Philip  T 

"  No,  boys ;  though  some  persons  much  older 
than  you  are,  did  nothing  but  guess  about  this 
very  thing,  and  guessed  very  far  from  the  truth 
too.  Some  thought  that  the  fly  had  a  sponge 
in  its  foot,  and  squeezed  a  sort  of  glue  out  of 
it  which  made  it  stick  fast ;  others  said  that 
the  glass  or  wall  was  so  rough  that  the  fly's 
feet  would  catch  hold  of  the  little  points  upon 
it ;  but  both  were  wrong." 

"  How  does  it  hold  on,  Uncle  Philip  T 

"  Did  you  ever  see  what  the  boys  call  a 
sucker,  made  of  a  piece  of  soft  sole  leather  ? 
That  will  show  you  how  the  fly's  foot  sticks 


178  CONVERSATIONS    ON 

fast.  This  leather  is  cut  round,  and  has  a 
string  through  the  centre ;  the  boys  wet  it, 
and  then  put  it  upon  a  board  or  something 
smooth,  and  stamp  on  it,  and  try  to  raise  it 
up  from  the  board  by  the  string ;  and  it  re- 
quires some  strength  to  pull  it  up :  sometimes 
they  put  it  on  a  small  smooth  stone,  and  then 
lift  up  the  stone  by  it.  The  reason  why  the 
leather  sticks  so  fast  is  because  the  air  is 
pressing  on  it  upon  the  outside,  and  there  is 
very  little  or  no  air  between  it  and  the  board, 
to  press  the  other  way." 

"  Why,  Uncle  Philip,  is  the  air  heavy  ?" 

"  Oh  yes,  boys,  when  there  is  so  much  of  it 
as  there  is  above  the  earth,  it  presses  down 
very  heavily.  Now  the  fly's  foot  is  like  the 
sucker ;  when  he  puts  it  down  he  has  a  con- 
trivance to  drive  out  the  air  from  under  it,  so 
that  there  will  be  little  or  none  between  it  and 
the  wall ;  and  then  the  outer  air  presses  upon 
it,  and  holds  it  fast." 

"  But,  Uncle  Philip,  how  does  he  get  it  up 
again  ?" 

"  Why,  boys,  by  another  contrivance,  he 
can  let  air  in  under  his  foot  again,  and  then 
he  can  easily  move  it ;  for  we  do  not  feel  the 
weight  of  air  when  it  presses  upon  both  sides 


NATURAL    HISTORY.  179 

of  us.  The  reason  why  you  stand  up  straight 
is  because  the  air  is  pressing  all  around  you  ; 
if  it  were  on  one  side  of  you  only,  it  would 
press  you  down  on  the  other  side.  Here  is  a 
picture  of  the  fly's  foot,  as  it  appears  through 
the  microscope.  You  will  see  it  has  three 
suckers  with  the  edges  all  like  saws  ;  these  are 
to  make  it  stick  the  closer.  This  picture,  boys, 
is  sixty-four  hundred  times  as  large  as  the  fly's 
foot  is." 


Fly's  foot  magnified. 

"  But,  Uncle  Philip,  there  is  one  thing  yet 
hard  to  understand." 


180  CONVERSATIONS    ON 

"What  is  it?" 

"  Why,  the  fly  walks  on  the  wall  over  our 
heads  ;  now  the  air  cannot  press  down  upon 
his  feet  there." 

"  Very  true,  boys :  it  cannot  press  down^  but 
it  can  and  does  press  up  against  his  feet ;  for 
the  air  presses  up  and  down  and  sidewise  all 
alike." 

"  Ah,  now  it  is  plain  enough,  and  we  are 
much  obliged  to  you,  Uncle  Philip,  for  telling 
us  what  we  wished  to  know." 

"  You  are  quite  welcome,  my  dear  boys,  to 
all  that  I  can  teach  you :  if  it  makes  you  to 
be  wiser  and  better  men  when  you  grow  up,  I 
shall  be  very  thankful  to  GOD  that  I  have 
been  able  to  do  you  any  good." 

"  Good  morning,  Uncle  Philip." 

"  Good  day,  boys  ;  I  shall  expect  to  see  you 
all  in  church  to-morrow." 

"  We  shall  be  there,  Uncle  Philip.' 


NATURAL   HISTORY.  181 


CONVERSATION  XV. 

Uncle  Philip  tells  the  Boys  how  Hats  are 
made  ;  and  then  talks  to  them  about  Ani- 
mals that  can  make  Felt  like  the  Hatter. 

"  BOYS,  do  you  remember  my  telling  you  of 
a  remarkable  bird,  called  the  tailor-bird,  which 
sews  very  neatly  1" 

"  Oh  yes,  Uncle  Philip ;  it  is  not  easy  to 
forget  such  an  excellent  little  workman ;  but 
why  do  you  ask — have  you  any  thing  more 
to  tell  us  about  that  bird  ?" 

"  No,  boys,  not  any  thing  of  that  bird :  but 
I  was  thinking  last  night  of  the  work  done 
by  several  other  kinds  of  birds,  some  of  them 
quite  as  good  workmen  as  our  little  tailor; 
and  I  thought  that,  perhaps,  you  might  like  to 
hear  of  them." 

"  We  would,  Uncle  Philip,  be  very  happy 
to  hear  of  them,  if  you  will  have  the  kindness 
to  tell  us  about  them.  But  what  kind  of  work 
is  it  they  do  T 

"  Various  kinds,  boys.      There  are  some 

Q 


182  CONVERSATIONS   ON 

which  make  what  is  called  felt,  just  as  the 
hat-maker  does ;  and  some  are  weavers,  others 
basket-makers ;  some  build  platforms  to  live 
on  ;  and  I  assure  you  some  birds'  nests  are  as 
curious  as  any  of  the  things  of  which  I  have 
yet  told  you." 

"  Pray  let  us  hear  of  them,  Uncle  Philip." 

"  Very  well,  you  shall.  I  will  begin  with 
birds  that  make  felt  like  the  hatter.  Do  you 
know  how  a  hat  is  made  ?" 

"  Not  exactly,  Uncle  Philip ;  but  we  know 
what  it  is  made  of." 

"  What  is  it,  boys  ?" 

"  Of  sheep's  wool,  and  the  hair  of  other 
animals :  is  it  not  ?" 

"  Yes,  commonly  of  these  things  ;  and  to 
understand  what  I  am  going  to  tell  you,  I 
think  it  will  be  necessary  first  to  say  some- 
thing about  the  hatter's  trade.  The  business 
of  the  man  who  makes  a  hat  is  to  mix  up  wool 
or  hair  in  such  a  way  that  it  will  stick  to- 
gether and  make  felt ;  or  something  like  a 
piece  of  thick,  strong  cloth.  To  do  this,  he 
does  not  weave  the  hairs  together,  for  they  are 
of  different  kinds,  and  of  different  lengths, 
and  it  would  be  endless  work  to  weave  every 


NATURAL   HISTORY.  183 

one  in  ;  besides  the  cloth  or  felt  would  not  be 
thick  enough  when  it  was  done." 

"  How  do  they  stick  together  then,  'Uncle 
Philip  ?" 

"  Why,  boys,  their  sticking  together  is 
owing  to  something  in  the  hairs  themselves. 
I  will  show  you.  Pull  a  hair  out  of  your 
head ;  now  hold  it  just  between  the  ends  of 
your  two  fore-fingers,  and  rub  the  fingers 
gently  against  each  other." 

"  Why,  Uncle  Philip  !  see,  the  hair  is  mov- 
ing towards  my  body." 

"  Very  true ;  and  if  you  will  turn  it  with 
the  other  end  towards  you,  and  rub  your 
fingers  as  before,  you  will  see  it  move  from 
your  body." 

"  This  is  very  strange,  Uncle  Philip :  the 
hair  is  smooth ;  how  can  my  fingers  make  it 
move  so  ?" 

"  No,  that  is  a  mistake,  boys,  the  hair  is 
not  smooth.  If  some  kinds  of  coarse  hair  are 
seen  through  the  microscope,  each  one  will 
seem  to  be,  not  one  hair,  but  ten  or  twelve 
smaller  ones,  which  are  joined  at  the  root,  and 
form  a  hollow  tube,  like  a  straw ;  and  some- 
times it  will  have  joints  just  like  some  kinds 
of  grass  or  straw.  In  some  sorts  of  finer  hair 


184  CONVERSATIONS   ON 

you  cannot  see  this  even  with  the  microscope ; 
but  you  can  feel  it,  as  you  did  just  now  when 
you  moved  your  fingers.  These  joints  over- 
lap one  another,  just  as  if  you  should  take 
several  pieces  of  straw  and  stick  them  into 
each  other.  I  will  show  you  some  pictures 
of  hairs  as  seen  through  the  microscope,  and 
then  these  joints  will  be  plain  enough." 


Hairs  of  (a)  the  Bat,  (6)  the  Mole,  and  (c)  the  Mouse. 

"  These  are  strange-looking  hairs,  Uncle 
Philip." 

"  Yes,  they  are  curious ;  but  now  you  may 
see  why,  when  hairs  are  worked  together,  they 
may  be  made  to  stick  to  each  other.  These 
rough  parts  catch  into  each  other,  and  hook 
themselves ;  and  the  more  you  press  them  or 
move  them,  the  more  closely  you  work  them 


NATtTRAL   HISTORY.  185 

into  one  solid  mass,  which  you  cannot  easily 
pull  to  pieces.  Besides,  you  must  remember 
that  the  hairs  will  work  only  one  way,  as  you 
found  out  just  now  when  your  finger  ends 
caught  upon  the  little  joints  and  moved  them 
along.  Now,  suppose  that  a  very  large  heap 
of  hairs,  or  wool,  or  fur,  after  it  is  made  ready, 
should  be  put  upon  a  table,  and  covered  with 
a  linen  cloth,  and  pressed  down  in  different 
directions.  Each  hair  would  begin  to  move 
in  the  direction  of  its  root,  just  as  it  did  be- 
tween your  fingers,  and  so  all  would  be  joined 
together  at  last  into  one  soli»  piece." 

"  We  understand  you,  Uncle  Philip." 

"  Then  you  understand,  boys,  the  way  in 
which  a  hat  is  made.  These  hairs  are  all 
worked  together  by  the  hands  of  the  hat- 
maker,  and  to  make  them  work  more  easily 
(for  curled  hair,  such  as  wool,  do&s  not  move 
easily)  the  hatter  uses  hot  water,  and  dips  his 
hat  in  it  while  he  is  working  it.  After  it  is 
done,  it  is  died,  and  then  put  upon  a  wooden 
block  to  give  it  shape,  and  is  ironed  smooth." 

"  And  this  is  the  way,  then,  Uncle  Philip, 
to  make  hats  :  it  is  curious,  is  it  not  ?M 

"  Yes,  boys  ;  but  plain  enough  when  you 
come  to  examine  into  it.  And  the  best  stuff 


186  CONVERSATIONS  ON 

for  the  hatters  is  such  hair  as  has  most  joints 
ready  to  catch  into  each  other:  the  rabbit's 
hair  is  very  good,  and  for  that  reason." 

"  And  is  it  possible,  Uncle  Philip,  that  any 
bird  can  do  such  work  as  this  ?" 

"  Not  only  possible,  boys,  but  true.  There 
are  several  birds  very  expert  at  making  felt, 
and  their  nest  appears  like  a  piece  of  hatter's 
felt,  or  double-milled  woollen  cloth.  I  do  not 
mean  to  say  that  it  is  as  close  and  solid  as  the 
hat  or  cloth;  it  would  feel  in  "your  fingers 
looser  than  either,  still  it  is  quite  close ;  and 
when  you  exanpne  it,  you  will  find  it  put 
together  in  the  same  way ;  it  is  all  carded  into 
one  mass,  and  not  woven  together  thread  by 
thread,  or  hair  by  hair." 

"  And  are  there  many  birds  able  to  do  such 
work,  Uncle  Philip?" 

"  I  told  jtm,  boys,  that  there  were  several. 
The  chief  article  which  they  use  is  wool,  but 
with  this  many  other  things  will  be  found 
mixed — sometimes,  upon  the  outside,  fine 
moss — sometimes  pieces  of  a  spider's  web  rolled 
up  into  a  little  bundle — sometimes,  when  cotton 
can  be  had,  they  will  use  small  bunches  of 
cotton-wool ;  but  sheep's  wool  they  must  have, 
and  by  means  of  that,  they  contrive  to  make, 


NATURAL   HISTORY.  187 

with  the  other  things  I  have  mentioned,  a  felt 
wonderfully  smooth.7' 

"  Is  it  smooth  on  the  outside,  Uncle  Philip?1 
"  Sometimes  quite  so ;  but  always  as  smooth 
on  the  inside,  when  it  is  first  made,  as  if  it  had 
been  felted  together  by  the  hat-maker.  There 
is  another  thing  curious  enough  in  some  of 
these  nests.  The  hatter,  you  know,  binds  the 
rim  of  his  hat  to  make  it  stronger ;  and  some 
of  these  felt-making  birds  will  make  their  nests 
stronger  by  a  binding  all  around  them  of  dry 
grass  stems,  and  sometimes  of  slender  roots, 
and  they  take  care  to  cover  these  grass  stems, 
or  roots,  with  their  felt-work  of  moss  and 
wool.  But  there  is  something  else  not  less 
strange,  I  think,  than  the  binding.  It  is  this : 
they  will  build  their  nests  in  the  fork  of  a 
shrub  or  tree  ;  and  to  keep  them  from  falling, 
they  will  Work  bands  of  this  felt  round  all  the 
branches  which  touch  the  nest,  both  below 
and  at  the  sides.  And  those  parts  of  the  nest 
which  touch  the  large  branches  are  always 
thinner  than  the  other  parts,  which  have  no 
support ;  in  those  parts  the  nest  is  nothing 
but  a  thin  wall  of  felt,  fixed  around  to  fit  the 
shape  of  the  branch,  and  that  is  enough  to 


188 


CONVERSATIONS   ON 


make  that  part  of  the  nest  warm  and  soft. 
Here  is  a  picture  of  one  of  these  felt-nests, 
fastened  in  the  way  of  which  I  have  been  tell- 
ing you. 


Chaffinch's  Nest  on  an  Elder-tree. 


"  This,  boys,  is  the  nest  of  the  chaffinch. 
The  goldfinch  makes  a  nest  of  the  same  kind, 
only  rather  neater  and  smoother  than  that  of 


NATURAL    HISTORY.  189 

the  chaffinch ;  for  it  takes  pains  to  show 
nothing  but  the  wool,  and  covers  up  all  the 
other  materials  which  it  uses." 

"  Uncle  Philip,  do  these  birds  all  use  the 
same  things  to  make  their  nests  ?" 

"  All  use  wool,  boys  ;  but  the  truth  is,  that 
birds  will  commonly  take  for  their  nests  that 
article  which  they  can  get  most  easily,  if  it  will 
suit.  A  gentleman,  named  Bolton,  tried  this 
with  some  goldfinches.  He  saw  a  pair  of 
these  birds  beginning  to  build  in  his  garden  ; 
they  had  laid  the  foundation  of  their  nest  with 
moss,  and  grass,  and  such  things,  as  they 
commonly  use :  he  scattered  some  wool  about 
in  different  parts  of  the  garden  ;  the  birds  took 
the  wool :  afterward  he  scattered  cotton ; 
they  took  the  cotton  :  on  the  next  day  he  gave 
them  some  very  fine  down ;  they  took  that, 
and  finished  the  nest  with  it,  and  a  very  hand- 
some nest  it  was." 

"  How  long  were  they  in  making  it,  Uncle 
Philip?" 

"  Three  days.  The  canary-bird,  boys, 
which  you  sometimes  see  in  cages,  when  free, 
builds  a  nest  of  the  same  kind.  But  the  most 
curious  felt-makers  among  the  birds,  are  in 


190  CONVERSATIONS   ON 

Africa.  There  is  the  Cape-tit,  a  bird  in  the 
southern  part  of  Africa,  which  builds  a  very 
strange  nest :  it  is  shaped  like  a  bottle  of 
India-rubber,  as  thick  as  a  coarse  worsted 
stocking,  and  made  of  cotton,  and  down,  and 
other  things  felted  together.  On  one  side  of 
the  nest  there  is  something  like  a  pocket,  and 
here  is  a  picture  of  it." 


Nest  of  the  Cape-tit,  from  Sonnerat. 

«  Uncle  Philip,  what  is  that  pocket  for?" 
"  Why,  boys,  some  have  supposed  that  it 


NATURAL    HISTORY.  191 

was  for  the  male  bird  to  sit  on  and  keep  watch, 
while  the  female  was  inside  of  the  nest  sitting 
on  the  eggs ;  but  I  think  this  is  a  mistake. 
And  some  have  said,  that  when  the  female 
leaves  the  nest,  and  the  male  wishes  to  go  too, 
he  sits  in  this  pocket,  and  beats  against  the 
side  of  the  nest  with  his  wing  until  he  has 
made  the  edges  of  the  top  meet,  and  thus  shuts 
up  the  mouth  of  the  nest,  and  keeps  oif  insects 
and  other  animals  that  would  eat  the  young 
ones ;  but  I  do  not  believe  this  story." 

"  Then  what  do  you  think  the  pocket  is  for, 
Uncle  Philip?" 

"  I  think,  boys,  that  it  is  nothing  but  a 
perch,  or  place  for  the  bird  to  sit  on  before 
going  into  the  nest.  If  the  bird  had  no  such 
place  for  stopping,  it  might  be  troubled  to 
get  into  its  nest.  The  mouth  is  small,  and 
the  bird  could  not  enter  it  with  its  wings 
spread ;  and  if  it  should  alight  on  the  edge  of 
the  nest  constantly,  it  would  injure  it,  for  it  is 
but  slightly  made.  And  I  will  tell  you  another 
reason  why  I  think  this  is  the  use  of  the 
pocket.  There  is  another  bird  in  South 
Africa,  called  the  pine-pine,  which  is  the  same 
species  of  bird  as  the  Cape-tit ;  and  this  bird 
we  know  uses  its  little  nest  built  upon  the  side 


192  CONVERSATIONS   ON 

of  the  other  merely  as  a  resting-place  before 
going  into  the  nest." 

"  Uncle  Philip,  does  the  pine-pine  build  its 
nest  like  a  bottle,  as  the  Cape-tit  does?" 

"  No,  boys,  not  so  smooth,  but  felted  in  the 
same  way.  The  nest  is  made  mostly  of  the 
down  of  plants,  and  is  either  snowy  white  or 
brownish,  according  to  the  colour  of  the  down. 
On  the  outside  it  is  a  clumsy-looking  thing, 
but  fastened,  like  the  nest  of  the  chaffinch, 
very  firmly  to  the  branches  near  it,  so  that 
you  cannot  take  it  away  without  breaking  it  to 
pieces.  But  rough  as  the  outside  is,  you  would 
be  astonished,  if  you  were  to  look  at  the  inside, 
and  see  how  a  bird,  and  a  small  one  too,  with 
nothing  but  its  wings,  and  tail,  and  feet,  and 
bill  for  tools,  could  ever  have  worked  the 
down  of  plants  together,  so  as  to  make  of  it  a 
piece  of  fine  cloth.  It  has  a  narrow  neck,  some- 
thing like  a  chimney,  at  the  top  of  it.  This  is  the 
entrance ;  and  at  the  lower  end  of  it  there  is 
a  lump,  which  appears  something  like  a  small 
nest  stuck  on  to  the  larger  one;  sometimes 
there  will  be  three  or  four  of  these  small- 
looking  nests,  and  sometimes  when  there  is  a 
branch  near  the  mouth  of  the  nest  which 
makes  a  good  resting-place,  there  will  be 


NATURAL    HISTORY. 


193 


none.    Here  is  a  picture,  boys,  of  the  outside 
of  one  of  these  nests.    These  birds  are  easily 


Nest  of  the  Pine-pine. 


watched  ;  and  a  French  gentleman,  who  has 
written  the  best  account  of  the  birds  of  Africa,* 


'  M.  Vaillant. 
R 


194  CONVERSATIONS   ON 

says  that  he  has  found  at  least  a  hundred  of 
these  nests,  and  watched  the  birds  for  a  whole 
morning  together,  and  never  saw  one  sitting 
on  the  small  nest  as  a  watch-bird;  but 
has  seen  both  the  male  and  female  arrive  at 
the  nest  together,  perch  upon  the  nearest 
branch,  hop  from  this  upon  the  edge  of  the 
little  nest,  and  then  putting  their  heads  into  the 
hole,  dart  into  the  large  nest.  And  now,  boys, 
what  do  you  think  about  the  use  of  these 
little  pockets?" 

"  Oh,  Uncle  Philip,  we  think  that  what  you 
tell  us  is  always  right,  because  you  know  a 
great  deal  more  than  we  do." 

"  But,  boys,  you  do  not  understand  me.  I 
may  be  mistaken,  though  I  do  know  more 
than  you.  I  have  been  telling  you  my  reasons 
for  thinking  these  little  pockets  are  nothing 
but  perches.  Do  you  think  the  reasons  are 
good  ones  ?" 

"  Why,  yes,  Uncle  Philip,  we  do.  The 
French  gentleman  who  watched  the  birds  so 
much  would  have  seen  some  of  them  using 
the  pockets  for  a  place  to  keep  watch  in,  if 
they  were  made  for  that." 

"  Right,  boys.  What  I  wish  to  teach  you 
is  to  think  for  yourselves.  Whenever  any 


NATURAL    HISTORY.  195 

one  gives  you  a  reason  for  a  thing,  just  ask 
yourselves,  '  Is  this  a  good  reason  ?' " 

"  But,  Uncle  Philip,  how  did  it  happen  that 
the  other  people  who  saw  these  birds  should 
have  said  that  these  pockets  were  for  the  male 
bird  to  sit  in  and  watch  ?" 

"  I  suppose,  boys,  that  they  really  thought 
so ;  but  then  they  had  not  noticed  the  birds 
enough  to  find  out  the  truth.  It  requires  a 
great  deal  of  time  and  patience  to  find  out  the 
truth  about  animals :  and  this  is  the  reason 
why  so  many  mistakes  have  been  printed 
about  them.  It  is  a  pity  that  such  mistakes 
have  been  made ;  for  really  there  is  enough 
that  is  very  curious  about  them,  without 
men's  making  stories  to  appear  strange.  But 
I  think  that  there  will  be  fewer  mistakes 
made  in  future." 

"  Why  so,  Uncle  Philip  ?" 

"  Because,  boys,  men  are  taking  more  pains 
to  see  for  themselves.  There  are  more  natu- 
ralists now  than  there  were  formerly ;  and  I 
hope  there  will  be  more  still,  especially  in  our 
own  large  and  beautiful  country,  where  there 
have  not  yet  been  many.  I  hope  that  natural 
history  will  be  studied  in  all  our  schools  be* 


196  CONVERSATIONS  ON 

fore  a  great  while.    But  let  us  go  back  to  our 
African  birds. 

"  There  is  another  kind  which  Mr.  Yaillant 
speaks  of,  and  I  will  tell  you  of  that.  He  calls 
it  the  capocier,  and  he  had  a  very  fine  oppor- 
tunity to  watch  two  of  them.  It  is  a  bird 
easily  made  gentle,  and  he  had  managed  by 
feeding  two  of  them  to  make  them  so  tame 
that  they  would  come  into  his  tent  and  hop 
about  several  times  in  a  day,  though  he  never 
had  them  in  a  cage.  When  it  became  time 
for  them  to  build  a  nest,  they  staid  away  for 
some  time,  and  would  come  to  the  tent  once 
only  in  four  or  five  days.  At  last  they  began 
to  come  regularly,  as  before,  and  Mr.  Vaillant 
soon  found  out  what  they  came  for.  They 
had  seen  upon  his  table  cotton  and  moss  and 
flax,  which  he  used  to  stuff  the  skins  of  birds, 
and  which  were  always  lying  there  ;  and  the 
capociers  had  come  for  these  things,  to  build 
their  nest  of  them.  They  would  take  up 
large  bunches  of  them  in  their  bills  and  fly 
away.  Mr.  Yaillant  followed  and  watched 
them  to  see  the  nest  built,  and  found  them  at 
work  in  the  corner  of  a  garden,  by  the  side  of 
a  spring,  in  a  large  plant  which  grew  under 


NATURAL    HISTORY.  197 

the  shade  of  a  tree.  They  were  building  in 
the  fork  of  the  branches,  and  had  laid  the 
foundation,  which  was  about  four  inches  high 
and  six  inches  across.  This  part  was  made 
of  moss  and  flax,  mixed  with  grass  and  tufts 
of  cotton.  The  next  day  this  gentleman  never 
left  the  side  of  the  nest :  the  female  was  at 
work  building,  and  the  male  brought  the  ma- 
terials. In  the  morning  the  male  bird  made 
twenty-nine  journeys  to  Mr.  Vaillant's  table 
for  flax  and  cotton  and  moss  ;  and  in  the  af- 
ternoon he  made  seventeen.  He  would  help 
his  mate  to  trample  down  and  press  the  cotton 
with  his  body,  so  as  to  make  it  into  felt. 
Whenever  he  came  with  a  load,  he  would  put 
it  either  upon  the  edge  of  the  nest  or  upon 
some  branch  within  reach  of  the  female. 

*  After  he  began  to  help  the  female  at  her 
work,  he  would  often  break  off,  and  begin  to 
play ;  and  sometimes,  as  if  in  mischief,  he 
would  pull  down  a  little  of  her  work.  She 
would  get  angry,  and  peck  him  with  her  bill ; 
but  he  still  continued  to  vex  her,  until  at 
last,  to  save  her  work  from  being  pulled  down, 
she  would  stop  working,  and  fly  oflf  from  bush 
to  bush,  to  tease  him.  They  would  then 
make  up  the  quarrel,  and  she  set  about  her 


198  CONVERSATIONS    ON 

work,  while  he  would  sing  most  delightfully 
for  several  minutes.  After  his  song  was  fin- 
ished, he  would  go  to  work  again,  until  he 
got  into  a  new  fit  of  mischief  and  frolic,  and 
then  he  would  torment  her  as  before. 

"  On  the  third  day  the  birds  began  to  build 
the  walls,  after  having  repeatedly  pressed  the 
bottom,  and  turned  themselves  round  upon  it 
in  all  directions,  to  make  the  nest  solid.  They 
first  made  a  plain  border  all  around ;  this  they 
trimmed,  arid  on  it  they  piled  up  tufts  of  cot- 
ton, which  they  felted  in  by  beating  and  press- 
ing with  their  breasts  and  wings  ;  and  if  any 
part  stuck  out,  they  worked  it  in  with  their 
bills,  so  as  to  make  all  perfectly  smooth  and 
firm.  And  they  worked  their  nest  round  the 
branches  near  it,  just  as  the  chaffinch  does. 

"  In  seven  days  they  finished  it.  It  was  as 
white  as  snow,  and  on  the  outside  it  was  nine 
inches  high,  and  not  smooth  or  regular  in  its 
shape ;  but  in  the  inside  it  was  shaped  exactly 
like  a  hen's  egg,  with  the  small  end  up :  the 
hollow  was  five  inches  high,  and  between 
four  and  five  inches  across ;  and  it  was  so 
neatly  felted  together  that  it  might  have  been 
taken  for  a  piece  of  fine  cloth  a  little  worn; 
and  so  close  that  you  could  not  take  away 


NATURAL    HISTORY.  199 

any  part  without  tearing  the  nest  in  pieces. 
Here  is  a  picture  of  the  nest,  boys,  and  it  is 
wonderful  work  for  a  small  bird." 


Nest  of  the  Capocier,  from  Vaillant's  figure, 

"  Oh,  Uncle  Philip  !  we  like  the  capociers 
very  much.    When  they  were  tired  of  work- 


200  CONVERSATIONS   ON 

ing,  they  were  ready  to  play  ;  and  when  they 
had  played  enough,  they  went  back  to  work. 
Do  not  you  think  there  was  good  sense  in 
that?" 

"  Yes,  boys,  I  do  :  it  will  not  do,  either  to 

work  all  the  time  or  to  play  all  the  time.     All 

that  we  have  to  do  is  to  take  care  that  we 

do  not  spend  more  time  than  we  should  at 

either.     But  there  is  a  sweet  little  bird,  boys, 

quite  common  in  our  own    country,  which 

makes  felt :  would  you  like  to  hear  of  it  ?" 

«  Oh  yes,  Uncle  Philip.     What  bird  is  it  T 

"  It  is  the  humming-bird.   Here  is  a  drawing 

of  its  nest.     It  is  about  an  inch  deep,  and  an 


Nest  of  the  Humming-bird. 


NATURAL    HISTORY.  201 

inch  across ;  and  from  a  little  distance,  appears 
more  like  a  small  knot  upon  the  branch  than 
like  a  bird's  nest.  The  outside  of  the  nest 
from  which  this  picture  is  made,  was  covered 
with  a  kind  of  %  bluish-gray  lichen,  that  grows 
in  scales  upon  old  trees  and  fences :  this 
seemed  to  be  glued  on  by  the  bird  in  some 
way  or  other.  The  inside  was  the  felt,  and 
was  made  of  the  fine  down  from  seeds  that 
float  about  in  the  air,  mixed  with  the  down 
from  mullein- weed  and  stalks  of  fine  grass. 
This,  boys,  is  the  smallest  nest  made  by  a 
bird,  I  believe  ;  and  some  insects  make  larger 
houses  for  themselves  than  this  bird  does. 

"But  I  have  not  time  at  present  to  talk 
with  you  any  longer,  as  I  have  letters  to 
write ;  and  therefore  I  must  bid  you  good 
morning." 

«  Farewell,  Uncle  Philip." 


202  CONVERSATIONS  ON 


CONVERSATION  XVI. 

Uncle  Philip  tells  the  Boys  about  Birds  that 
are  Weavers ;  and  about  the  Politician- 
bird;  and  a  Story  about  some  Philosophers; 
and  what  may  be  learned  from  these  Con- 
versations. 

"  WELL,  boys,  were  you  pleased  enough 
with  our  last  conversation  to  wish  to  hear 
more  about  birds'  nests  ?" 

"  Yes,  if  you  please,  Uncle  Philip.  You 
said  something  about  birds  that  were  weavers ; 
we  should  like  to  hear  something  of  them." 

"  Very  well,  then ;  I  will  talk  about  the 
weavers  this  morning.  And  the  first  thing  I 
have  to  say  is  that  this  is  no  uncommon  trade 
among  birds.  Take  the  nest  of  any  of  the 
common  small  birds  that  use  hair  for  a  lining, 
and  you  will  be  apt  to  find  some  part  of  it 
woven." 

"  But,  Uncle  Philip,  you  do  not  mean  that 


NATURAL   HISTORY.  203 

birds  weave  as  smoothly  and  regularly  as 
people  do  !" 

"  Not  quite,  boys  ;  but  still  it  is  very  fair 
weaving,  and  done  as  our  weaving  is,  by 
working  a  hair  or  thread  in  and  out  between 
other  hairs  and  threads,  or  roots,  or  bits  of  stick 
and  grass.  The  best  way  to  see  it,  is  to  re- 
move the  outside  work  of  hay  or  roots  very 
carefully,  or  to  take  away  the  felt-work  of 
wool  or  moss,  and  you  may  see  a  round  piece 
of  hair-cloth,  sometimes  finer,  and  sometimes 
coarser,  according  to  the  bird  that  made  it, 
and  the  things  of  which  it  is  made.  In  the 
common  sparrow's  nest  the  hair-cloth  is  very 
thin,  so  that  you  can  see  through  it  easily ; 
but  still  every  hair  is  woven  in  singly,  and 
always  bent,  so  as  to  lie  smooth  in  the  bottom 
of  the  nest.  And  there  are  no  ends  of  hairs 
left  sticking  out ;  they  are  always  worked 
into  the  moss  which  makes  the  outside  of  the 
nest." 

"  Uncle  Philip,  how  do  the  birds  make  the 
hairs  lie  smooth  in  their  places  ?" 

"About  that,  boys,  there  is  some  uncer- 
tainty. Some  persons  think  that  the  birds 
have  a  kind  of  glue  in  their  mouths  by  which 
they  make  them  stick;  and  others  suppose 


204  CONVERSATIONS  ON 

that  they  wet  the  hairs,  so  as  to  make  them 
bend.  But  there  are  much  better  weavers 
than  the  common  sparrow.  The  red-breast 
and  the  yellow-hammer  are  both  better  work- 
men." 

"  Where  do  they  get  hairs,  Uncle  Philip  ?" 

"  They  find  bunches  of  them  sticking  in 
the  cracks  of  a  fence  or  post  where  a  horse  or 
cow  has  been  rubbing  ;  and  some  of  these  little 
creatures,  when  they  find  such  a  bunch,  will 
pull  it  to  pieces,  and  work  it  in,  hair  by  hair." 

"Are  there  many  of  these  weaver-birds, 
Uncle  Philip?" 

"  Yes,  boys,  a  great  many  :  our  country  is 
quite  full  of  them.  There  is  the  mountain 
ant-catcher,*  which  will  weave  a  nest  of  dry 
grass,  and  wind  the  blades  round  the  branches 
of  a  tree  ;  and  the  king-bird,t  which  first 
makes  a  basket  frame-work  of  slender  sticks, 
and  afterward  weaves  in  wool  and  tow,  and 
lines  it  with  hairs  and  dry  grass.  There  is 
another,  too,  the  white-eyed  fly-catcher,  which 
some  have  called  the  politician.  This  bird 
builds  its  nest  arid  hangs  it  up  by  the  upper 
edge  of  the  two  sides  on  a  vine.  The  outside 
is  made  of  pieces  of  rotten  wood,  threads  of 

*  Myiothera  obsoleta  of  Bonaparte.  f  Tyrannus  intrepldus. 


NATURAL    HISTORY.  205 

dry  stalks  or  weeds,  pieces  of  paper,  com- 
monly old  newspapers ;  and  all  these  are 
woven  together  with  caterpillar's  silk,  and 
lined  with  fine  dry  grass  and  hair." 

"  Uncle  Philip,  why  do  they  call  it  the  poli- 
tician ?  What  is  a  politician  ?" 

"What  is  commonly  called  a  politician, 
boys,  is  a  person  who  is  always  reading  in 
newspapers  about  the  government  of  the 
country,  and  talking  a  great  deal  about  the 
President  and  Congress,  and  the  laws  that  are 
made,  and  all  such  things  :  but  the  real  poli- 
tician is  one  who  studies  the  different  kinds 
of  government  which  have  been  in  the  world, 
and  endeavours  to  find  out  which  is  good  and 
which  is  bad,  and  why  they  are  good  or  bad. 
He  reads,  too,  a  great  deal  of  history,  to  learn 
how  other  nations  have  done,  what  kind  of 
laws  they  made,  and  why  they  made  them, 
how  they  became  great  nations,  or  how  they 
became  very  poor  ;  and  he  thinks,  too,  a  great 
deal,  that  he  may  find  out  what  will  be  best 
for  his  own  nation.  It  requires  hard  study 
and  thought,  boys,  to  make  a  good  politician." 

"  Then,  Uncle  Philip,  a  man  cannot  learn 
how  to  be  one  out  of  the  newspapers." 

"  No,  boys  ;  not  out  of  newspapers  alone  : 
s 


206  CONVERSATIONS   ON 

but  still  he  will  read  them,  and  very  often 
learn  from  them  things  very  useful  to  him  in 
his  business.  Newspapers  are  valuable  things, 
and  I  think  it  is  always  best  for  a  country  to 
have  a  great  many  of  them  spread  about  in  it. 
But  they  will  not,  of  themselves,  make  a  man 
a  politician  ;  and  if  you  should  ask  the  per- 
sons who  print  them,  whether  they  expect 
them  to  teach  men  all  about  governments, 
they  will  tell  you,  No :  but  they  will  teach 
people  what  is  doing  in  all  the  governments 
in  the  world.  No  good  government,  boys, 
will  ever  be  afraid  to  let  the  people  have 
newspapers.  They  are  always  fewest  where 
the  government  is  hardest  upon  the  people. 
But  let  us  go  back  to  the  birds.  Can  you  tell 
me  now  why  some  people  call  the  fly-catcher 
a  politician  ?" 

"  Oh,  yes  ;  because  he  has  so  many  bits  of 
old  newspapers  about  his  nest." 

"  That  is  the  reason,  boys.  There  is  an- 
other kind  of  fly-catcher,  called  the  hooded 
fly-catcher,  and  it  weaves  its  nest  of  flax  and 
strings  pulled  from  the  stalks  of  hemp :  but 
the  best  weaver  in  this  country  is  the  Balti- 
more starling.  This  bird  chooses  the  ends  of 
high  bending  branches  for  his  nest,  and  he 
begins  in  a  forked  twig,  by  fastening  strong 


NATURAL   HISTORY.  207 

strings  of  hemp  or  flax  around  both  branches 
of  the  fork,  just  as  far  apart  as  he  means  the 
width  of  his  nest  to  be :  he  then  with  the  same 
kind  of  strings,  mixed  in  with  pieces  of  loose 
tow,  weaves  a  strong,  firm  kind  of  cloth,  which 
is  tike  the  hatter's  felt  in  appearance,  only  that 
you  can  see  that  the  nest  is  woven,  not  felted. 
In  this  way  he  makes  a  pouch,  or  purse,  six 
or  seven  inches  deep,  and  lines  it  on  the  in- 
side with  several  soft  things,  which  he  weaves 
into  the  outside  netting,  and  finishes  the 
whole  with  horse-hair.  Mr.  Wilson  describes 
one  of  these  nests  which  he  had.  He  says 
that  it  was  round  like  a  cylinder.  Do  you 
know  what  a  cylinder  is  ?" 

«  No,  Uncle  Philip." 

"  A  smooth  round  pillar  to  hold  up  a  porch 
is  a  cylinder ;  my  walking-cane  is  a  cylinder ; 
so  is  the  straight  body  of  a  tree.  When  these 
are  of  the  same  size  all  through  their  whole 
length,  they  are  perfect  cylinders ;  and  any 
thing  in  that  shape  is  a  cylinder." 

"  We  understand  you,  Uncle  Philip ;  a  gun- 
barrel  is  a  cylinder,  and  there  is  a  cylinder  in 
your  garden." 

"What  is  it?" 

"  The  heavy  stone  roller  that  you  let  us 
pull  over  the  walks.". 


208  CONVERSATIONS    ON 

"  Right.  Well,  this  nest  was  like  a  cylinder, 
about  five  inches  across,  and  seven  inches  long. 
At  the  top  the  bird  had  worked  a  level  cover, 
so  as  to  leave  a  hole  only  two  inches  and  a  half 
across  ;  at  the  bottom  it  was  round.  It  was 
made  of  flax,  tow,  hemp,  hair,  and  wool,  and 
was  woven  into  a  complete  cloth  ;  it  was  also 
tightly  sewed  through  and  through  with  long 
horse-hairs,  some  of  which  when  drawn  out 
measured  two  feet.  Here  is  a  picture  of  this 


Baltimore  Starling,  and  Nest. 


NATURAL   HISTORY.  209 

nest.  In  the  bottom  it  had  bunches  of  cows1 
hair,  and  these  were  also  sewed  down  with 
horse-hairs.  This  bird,  boys,  is  a  thief." 

"A  thief,  Uncle  Philip!  What  does  it 
steal  T 

"  When  I  say  it  is  a  thief,  boys,  I  mean  that 
it  takes  what  does  not  belong  to  it :  but  it  is 
not  a  thief  as  man  is.  When  a  man  takes 
something  which  belongs  to  another  person,  he 
knows  that  it  is  not  his ;  and  therefore  he 
steals  :  but  the  poor  bird  does  not  know,  and 
that  makes  a  difference.  You  asked  me  what 
it  steals :  I  will  tell  you.  At  the  time  for 
building  its  nest,  it  will  take  whatever  suits 
for  that  purpose ;  and  therefore  the  country 
women  are  obliged  to  watch  their  thread  that 
they  have  put  out  to  bleach  :  the  farmer,  too, 
who  has  cut  off  young  grafts  from  his  fruit- 
trees  and  tied  them  up  in  bundles,  must  be 
careful,  or  the  bird  will  pull  at  the  string  till 
he  gets  it  off;  and  sometimes,  when  the  bunch 
is  not  too  large,  he  will  fly  off  with  the  whole. 
In  autumn,  when  the  leaves  have  fallen,  you 
may  sometimes  see  skeins  of  silk  and  hanks 
of  thread  hanging  about  the  starling's  nest, 
but  so  woven  up  and  entangled  in  it  that  they 
are  good  for  nothing.  Now,  boys,  before  this 


210  CONVERSATIONS    ON 

country  was  settled  by  people  from  Europe, 
where  do  you  suppose  the  starling  got  silk  and 
thread  for  his  nest  ?" 

"  Why,  Uncle  Philip,  are  you  sure  he  got 
them  at  all  T 

"  A  very  sensible  question,  boys.  When 
you  are  asked  why  a  thing  is  so,  it  is  always 
well,  first  to  be  satisfied  that  it  is  so,  before 
you  begin  to  look  for  a  reason.  I  have  read 
a  story  about  this  very  thing :  would  you 
like  to  hear  it  T 

"  Oh  yes,  Uncle  Philip." 

"  Well,  then,  I  have  read  that  there  were 
once  several  philosophers  (I  told  you  what  a 
philosopher  is,  you  know),  who  were  in  the 
habit  of  meeting  together  to  put  questions  to 
each  other,  and  to  make  new  discoveries.  At 
one  of  these  meetings,  one  of  them  asked  the 
others, '  Why  a  fish  weighed  more  in  the  water 
than  he  did  out  of  it  T  Several  of  them  gave 
very  wise  reasons,  as  they  thought ;  and  all 
the  reasons  were  different :  so  they  could  not 
agree.  There  was  among  them,  however,  a 
very  sensible  old  gentleman,  who  listened  to 
them  all,  but  said  nothing.  When  he  went 
home,  he  got  a  fish  and  weighed  it,  out  of  the 
water,  and  wrote  down  its  weight ;  he  then 


NATURAL   HISTORY.  211 

took  a  bucket  of  water,  and  weighed  that ;  and 
when  he  dropped  the  fish  in  the  bucket,  he 
found  that  it  increased  the  weight  of  the  whole, 
precisely  as  many  pounds  as  the  fish  had 
weighed  out  of  the  water ;  so  he  found  out 
that  there  was  no  reason  why  a  fish  weighed 
more  in  the  water  than  he  did  out  of  it,  be- 
cause it  was  not  true :  his  weight  was  the 
same  either  in  or  out  of  it." 

"  Ah,  Uncle  Philip,  that  is  a  pleasant  story: 
he  was  a  sensible  old  gentleman." 

"  Yes,  boys,  he  was ;  and  it  was  sensible  in 
you  to  ask  first  whether  the  starling  did  use 
silk  and  thread  before  Europeans  came  here  ; 
and  after  that  is  answered,  it  is  time  enough  to 
ask  where  he  got  such  things.  Now  the  truth 
is,  that  he  did  not  use  them  until  after  Eu- 
ropeans brought  them  here ;  because  there 
were  no  such  things  in  this  country  :  for  the 
Indians  who  lived  here  could  not  make  thread, 
I  think ;  and  I  am  sure  they  could  not  spin 
silk :  but  I  will  tell  you,  boys,  what  it  shows 
us ;  and  it  is  that  I  wish  you  to  notice." 

"  What  is  it,  Uncle  Philip  ?" 

"  It  is  the  wisdom  of  this  bird  in  taking  ad- 
vantage of  circumstances.  No  doubt  he  built 
very  good  nests  long  before  silk  and  thread 


212  CONVERSATIONS   ON 

were  in  the  country  ;  but  he  had  sense  enough 
to  know  that  they  were  exactly  what  suited 
him,  and  he  used  them  as  soon  as  he  could 
get  them." 

"Then,  Uncle  Philip,  you  think  that  the 
bird  has  reason  ?" 

"  No,  boys,  I  do  not :  but  you  have  reason, 
and  I  have  something  to  say  to  you  about  it. 
It  is  this :  as  GOD  has  given  you  reason,  and 
so  made  you  better  than  the  poor  dumb  ani- 
mals, he  expects  more  from  you.  That  is 
fair,  is  it  not?" 

"  Yes,  Uncle  Philip ;  very  fair." 

"  Then  what  I  wish  you  to  remember  is 
this  :  that  you  must  use  your  reason  in  such 
way  as  to  glorify  GOD.  He  gave  it  to  you 
to  learn  his  will  and  his  commandments,  and 
to  live  accordingly.  So  now  you  see  the 
things  which  our  conversations  about  the 
animals  can  teach  us.  In  the  first  place,  we 
see  the  goodness  of  God ;  in  the  second  place, 
we  see  the  power  of  God ;  in  the  third  place, 
we  see  the  wisdom  of  God :  and  we  see  in 
ourselves  that  God  has  done  more  for  us  than 
he  has  done  for  them,  and  therefore  we  ought 
to  love  and  serve  him  :  we  ought  to  believe 
what  he  says  in  his  Word ;  we  ought  to  pray 


NATURAL   HISTORY.  213 

to  him  for  his  blessed  help  ;  we  ought,  first  of 
all,  to  seek  the  salvation  of  our  souls,  through 
our  Lord  Jesus  Christ. 

"  Now,  my  dear  children,  to-morrow  I  must 
leave  home  for  a  few  weeks  ;  but  when  I  come 
back  we  will  talk  together  again :  and  as  I 
am  going  to  see  my  nephews,  I  will  get  a 
book  which  they  printed  about  insects ;  it  is 
called  the  History  of  Insects,* — and  I  will 
bring  it  to  you ;  and  some  of  the  largest  boys 
among  you  may  read  it  aloud,  and  I  will  ex- 
plain to  you  what  you  cannot  understand.  If 
you  are  pleased  with  what  I  have  been  telling 
you,  that  book  will  tell  you  a  great  deal  more." 

"  Oh,  thank  you,  Uncle  Philip.  We  shall 
like  it  very  much." 

"  Farewell,  boys." 

"  Good-by,  dear  Uncle  Philip." 

*  Family  Library,  No.  VIII.— Publishers. 


THE    END* 


1 


YA  H4368 


HAH 


KY 


ofth«jJew*.     With  plates   3*. 

lot'tuai  Powers,  &e  I  v 

4,  5.  Loi&hart'H  Life  of  IVttpo- 

S8,  40.    Celebrated  Travellers  3  v 

-•••)  ilonaparfe.     Piates.     2  *. 

i  1  ,  42.    Life  of  Frederic  II  -  .  .  .  .  2  v. 

ft.  Somhey's   Life  of  Nel&on  1  v. 

i3,  44   Venetian  History..  ...  2  v. 

7;  Williama's  Lite  of  Alexan- 

15, M.  Thatcher's  Indian  Lives  3  v, 

der  thn  Great.    Plates.  ...  If. 

*7,  48,49.  History  of  India....  3v 

;ural  History  of  Insects  I  v, 

SO.  Browster's  Letters  on  Nat- 

9  Gait's  Life  of  Lord  byron  1  v. 

ural  Magic.     EngravingB    i  v 

10,  Busa's  Life  of  Mohammed  1  v. 

51,  52    History  of  Ireland  9  v. 

11.  Scott  on  Demonotogy  and 

53.   Discoveries  on  thn  North- 

Witchcratt.    Plate  I  v. 

ern  Coasts  of  America  .  .     1  v. 

i2,  13.  Cl«ig'»  Bible  History..  2v. 

54.  HurnboIdt'K  Travels  I  v 

14^  Discovery  and  Adventure 

56,  56,  Euler'sNat.  Philosoj 

in  the  Polar  Seas,  A-.e  I  v. 

57.  Mudie's  Guide  to  tho 

15-  Croly'w  Life  of  George  IV    t  v. 

servation  of  Natn 

16,  Discovery  and  Adventure 

58.  Ahercromhie  an  the  Philos- 

in Africa.    Engravings  .  .  i  v. 
17,  18,  19.  Cunningham's  Lives 

ophy  of  the  Moral  Fuel  Inge  1  v 
50,  Dick  on  the  Improvement 

of  Painters,  Sculptors,  <fcc.  3  v, 

Education,  &e,  1  * 

20.  James's  History  of  Chiv- 
alry and  the  Crusades  —  1  v. 

(jO.  .Tamen'  Life  of  Charlemagne  i  v. 

61.  N  tibia  and  Abvssinia.  .  .  .  .   f  v 

21,22.    Bell's    Life   of    Mary 

62,  63.  Life  of  Cromw«H  ....  2  v 

Queen  of  Scots.    Portrait  2v. 

M4.  Montgomery'^  Lectures  .  .   1  v 

23.  Russell'a  Ancient  and  >; 

65.  Peter  the  flreat  . 

era  Egypt.    With  plates-     1  v. 

fi6,  r»7.  Eminor 

54.  Fletcher's  History  Poland  Iv, 

fiS,  t>9.  History  of  Arabia. 

and  Arunsc,: 

1  v 

2fl.  Brewster                                                                                        y,  ?ifvoi 

Newton.    With  pi; 

27.  Russell's  Palestine,  o~ 

Holy  Land.    With  Plat 

CLASSICAL  SEfilES. 

8H-  Murom's  Memoirs  of  E; 

!.  2.  Xenophon.  (Anabasis  aud 

press  Josephine.    Plates.-   1  v. 

Cyropeedia.)    Portrait  -  . 

20.  The   Court  and   Camp  of 

3,  4.  Leland's  Denuosthenee.  .  2  v 

Bonaparte.     With  plates  1  v. 

5.  Rose's  Sallust.    Portrait-,  Iv 

SO.  Lives  of  Early  Navigators  1  v. 

(i,  7.  Csesar's  Commentaries..  2v. 

31.  Itaacrfption  of   Pitcairn's 

8,  9,  10.  Cicero.    Portrait  . 

Talw                     .vinge..  1  v. 

11,12.  Virgil.    Portrait  

3$.  .Tu                         Hstory.  .  Iv. 

13.  JEscbvlua.  

33,34.  ivs:inoif8of  Olebr- 

14.  So.                                       1  v 

Feinaie  ,  Sovereigns  2  v. 

15,  1C,  17.  En.                           5  v 

18,  1'J.  Horace  and  Phaudrus  2  r 

Theological  Library, 

i    Life  of  Wiciif  ,....  1  v. 

3,4.  Life  of  LM 

7.  Consistency  of  Revelation.  1  v. 

5,  6.  Life  of  C  * 

Boys'  and  Girls'  Ufcrary* 

•    Lives  of  the  ApostJes,  &c.  IT. 

15.  Female  Biography                !. 

2.  3.  Swiwa  Family  Robinson.  .  S  v. 

16.  Caroline  Wester  i 

4    Sunday  Evenings,  1st  vol.    1  v. 

JI7.  Clergyman's  Or] 

6    Son  of  a  Genius  Iv. 

18,  Sunday  Evenings 

L'ncle Pliilip'a Conversations  Iv.    10.  Ornaments  Discovered 
udian  Traits    .   .  .„ —  2 v«    20   Uncle rtnUp'e  Chriett*tiit> 
Jl.  American  History  »• 

2    \'onng  Cr!-; 

3.  ^un*iay  E~> 

4     fe 


!  21.  frn<-le  Philip's  Virginia        '  ' 


